[Sidenote: Mund-byrd of the King still 50 scillings and of the ceorl 6.] Thus we have again the mund-byrds of King Ethelbert’s Laws:-- Of the King 50 scillings. Of the ceorl 6 scillings. The crime of killing another in a drinking bout is a breach of the _mund_ of the owner of the ‘flet’ as well as a breach of the peace of the King. V. THE LAWS OF KING WIHTRÆD, A.D. 690-696. One more chance remains for further information regarding Kentish wergelds, viz. in the ‘Laws of King Wihtræd,’ who became King of the Kentish men about A.D. 690 and, according to Bede, died A.D. 725. A century had passed since the Laws of Ethelbert were enacted, in the time of St. Augustine. Brihtwald was now Archbishop of Canterbury, and at an assembly of Church and people ‘the great men decreed, with the suffrage of all, these dooms, and added them to the lawful customs of the Kentish men.’ These laws are mainly ecclesiastical both in their origin and subject. [Sidenote: Mund-byrd of King and Church both 50 scillings, and so no change in the Kentish currency.] In the first two clauses the Church was declared to be ‘free from gafols,’ and the mund-byrd of the Church was declared to be the same as the King’s, viz. fifty scillings--as in Ethelbert’s Laws. There is therefore no marked change in the Kentish currency, though by this time it must have been almost entirely silver so far as any Kentish coinage was concerned. Clause 5 introduces us for the first time in the Kentish laws to the distinction between the _gesithcund_ and _ceorlisc_ classes. Gif þæs geweorðe gesiðcundne mannan ofer þis gemot ꝥ he unriht hæmed genime ofer cingæs bebod ⁊ biscopes ⁊ boca dom se ꝥ gebete his dryhtne .c. scill. an eald reht. Gif hit ceorlisc man sie gebete .l. scill.… When it happens to a gesithcundman after this gemot that he enters into unlawful marriage against the command of the King and the bishop and the book’s doom, let him make bot for it to his lord with 100 scillings according to ancient law. If he be a _ceorlisc_ man, let him make bot with 50 scillings.… It would not do to conclude from this single allusion to gesithcund and ceorlisc men that the Kentish division of classes--eorlisc and ceorlisc--had given way before the Wessex division of classes--gesithcund and ceorlisc. There had been no interval between this and the last set of Kentish laws long enough to have made likely any radical change in social conditions, and as the ‘ancient law’ alluded to was probably ecclesiastical and not especially Kentish, either in its origin or its terms, it would not be wise to build anything upon the use of the word ‘gesithcund’ beyond recognising the natural tendency of neighbouring peoples under the same ecclesiastical influence to approximate in phraseology especially in regard to matters of general ecclesiastical interest.