Under King Alfred’s laws, as we have seen, the penalties for breaking into this precinct and committing crimes in it were payable to the person whose ‘peace’ was thus broken, and were not confined to the official classes as the mund-byrd and borh-bryce were. They went back to the tribal root-idea of the sanctity of the hearth and homestead of every tribesman. They extended from the king to the ceorl through all grades. The penalties for fighting within the precinct were practically the same in amount as those for the breaking into it. The penalty for fighting in the ceorlisc-man’s ‘flet’ was practically the same as that for breaking through his ‘edor’ into it. When all these penalties are put side by side in the form of a table two points become evident. First, how far removed the social position of the twelve-hyndeman was from that of the ealdorman. The penalty for fighting within his precinct is not much more than a third of that of the bishop and ealdorman, the inference being that his official position was much lower than the ealdorman’s. Secondly, when we compare the figures in the three columns, while the burh-bryce and fightwite of the twelve-hynde, six-hynde, and twy-hynde classes are both graduated in proportion to their wergelds and very closely resemble one another, it is curious to notice that the fightwite is based upon a duodecimal and the burh-bryce on a decimal system of reckoning, as if they had been derived from different original sources. If King Alfred had originated them he would probably have made them alike. In the following statement, collected from the several sections of King Alfred’s Laws for purposes of comparison and future reference, the amounts are stated in Wessex scillings of five pence.