This might at first sight seem an unnecessarily large requirement if the _oath_ were regarded only as clearing a man from the charge of man-slaying. But going back to tribal usage it seems no longer too large when the alternative is considered. The alternative was the ordeal and, on failure of the test of innocence, the feud or the payment of a wergeld of, as we have seen, normally one hundred head of cattle. In either case the slayer was powerless if alone. He was powerful only in having a full kindred behind him bound by ties of kinship and tribal usage first to swear for him instead of his being put to the ordeal, and secondly to fight for him or to assist him in finding the hundred head of cattle required to buy off the feud, according to the proverb ‘Buy off the spear or bear it.’ In either case the completeness of his kindred was the measure of the power of protection behind him. [Sidenote: The oath of the ceorl worth only one sixth of that of the twelve-hyndeman and thus only twy-hynde.] The twy-hyndeman considered as the leysing or freedman would not be in this strong position. His social status, resulting from his imperfect kindred, must be a low one. If he slew a twelve-hyndeman, from the point of view of the feud he would be helpless. The kindred of the twelve-hyndeman slain by him could not be satisfied merely by the slaughter of an inferior. Tribal custom of the Continental Saxons allowed vengeance for homicide by a thrall to be taken upon seven thralls. Under Mercian usage, as we have seen, it had been settled that the oath of the ceorl was to be taken as worth one sixth of that of the twelve-hyndeman, because the life of six ceorls was held to be equivalent in the matter of vengeance to that of one twelve-hyndeman. And thus it may be that, in the case of man-slaying, his oath and that of his oath-helpers, all of inferior value, came, under Anglo-Saxon custom, to be reckoned in comparison with that of the man of full kindred as worth only ‘two hyndens’ as against his twelve. In the other passage in which the word ‘hynden’ occurs it has not so distinctly the meaning of ‘oath-helpers.’ It is not used in relation to homicide or wergelds, but still its use and its meaning are instructive. [Sidenote: The hynden-men of the city frith-gegildas.] The use of the word in the ‘Judicia Civitatis Lundoniæ’[259] is in connection with the organisation of ‘frith-gegildas’ for the prevention and punishment of theft. These ‘frith-gegildas’ were groups or ‘hyndens’ with a common purse. And contributions were to be made for the common benefit. In the eighth clause it was enacted that the hynden-men should be collected every month, each twelve to a common meal. ‘And if it should then happen that any kin be so strong and so great within land or without land whether xii-hynde or twy-hynde that they refuse us our right and stand up in defence of a thief, that we all of us ride thereto with the reeve within whose “manung” it may be.’