Looking to the payments themselves they are graduated for three classes of læts. There were also, under Norse custom, three classes of leysings gradually growing by successive steps towards a higher grade of freedom as kindreds grew up around them and became more and more nearly perfect till at last the ninth generation from the first freedman became fully free. Why may not the three grades of Kentish læts have been doing the same? Let us compare the amounts of the payments for the slaying of the three classes of Kentish læts with those for the three classes of Norse leysings. We have seen over and over again that the Kentish scilling regarded as twenty sceatts was an ore or a Roman ounce of silver. Therefore the Kentish payments, stated in ounces of silver, were as follows:-- Best class of læt 80 ounces of silver Second class 60 ” ” Third class 40 ” ” The Norse ore was also in wheat-grains a Roman ounce of silver. The wergelds of the three classes of leysings in the Norse laws were as under:-- Frialsgiafi or newly made freedman 40 ores of silver Leysing after making ‘freedom ale’ 60 ” ” Leysinjia-son or highest rank of } leysing whose great-grandfather } 80 ” ” was a leysing[311] } [Sidenote: And the wergelds similar.] So that the wergelds of the three classes of Kentish læts corresponded exactly in amount with those of the three classes of Norse leysings, when reckoned both in silver. We may further compare these payments for the Kentish læts with those for the freedman of the nearly contemporary Bavarian laws. They are stated in gold solidi of three tremisses, and the Kentish solidus was of only two tremisses. We have seen that the Bavarian freedman was paid for with forty solidi, _i.e._ sixty Kentish scillings. The payment thus corresponded with that for the Kentish læt of the second class. [Sidenote: The grades the result of growth of kindred.] These correspondences are unexpected and very significant, but the significance is made still more important by the clause in the Laws of Wihtræd describing the position of the newly made freedman under Kentish custom. The description of his position might almost be taken as a description of the ‘frialgiafi’ or newly made leysing of the Norse laws. Under Kentish law the freedman was to be folkfree, but ‘the freedom-giver was to keep the heritage and wergeld and mund of his family, be he over the march wherever he will.’ This was, as we have seen, almost exactly the position of the Norse leysing before he had made his freedom ale. He had as yet no kindred to swear and to fight for him. He was still under the mund and protection of his lord. His descendants could only obtain the protection of a kindred and become wholly free from the _thyrmsl_ of the lord, when in the course of generations a kindred had grown up gradually around them.