If these sixty-five titles, in their original form, really go back to the time of Clovis, the fact that they were allowed to continue in late issues of the Lex Salica along with the additions made to it, is probably enough in itself to excite suspicion that even these may not have been allowed to remain as they originally stood without modification. [Sidenote: Edict of Childebert II. A.D. 599 on homicide discourages receipt and payment of wergelds.] Particularly on the question of homicide and the liability of the kindred of the slayer in the payment of the wergeld, it is difficult to understand how the clauses relating to its payment and receipt, if representing fully more ancient custom, could have been left altogether unaltered after the decree of Childebert II. (A.D. 599), which may be translated as follows:-- Concerning homicides we order the following to be observed: That whoever by rash impulse shall have killed another without cause shall be in peril of his life. For not by any price of redemption shall he redeem or compound for himself. Should it by chance happen that any one shall stoop to (make or receive?) payment, no one of his parentes or friends shall aid him at all, unless he who shall presume to aid him at all shall pay the whole of the wergeld, because it is just that he who knows how to kill should learn to die. (Pertz, _Leges_, i. p. 10.) The logic of this decree is curious. The slayer’s kindred were absolved by it from liability if they chose to stand aloof. But, if they stooped to help their kinsman at all, they must see to it that the whole wergeld was paid, no doubt to avoid breaches of the peace from attempts at private revenge if any part were left unpaid. But if the slayer’s relations did not pay the wergeld--what then? The slayer was to be left ‘in peril of his life.’ From whom? It must have been from the vengeance of the slain man’s kindred. One would have thought that this decree would have defeated itself, for apparently, whilst it absolved the murderer’s kindred from obligation to assist the murderer to pay the wergeld, it left untouched the right of vengeance on the part of the slain man’s relations, thereby, one would have thought, multiplying cases of breach of the peace. That clauses relative to receipt and payment of wergeld were left in the Lex after this decree shows probably that the system of wergelds remained practically still in force. People went on ‘living under the Lex Salica,’ after the date of the edict, and in spite of the latter no doubt wergelds were paid and received. But whilst this may have been a reason why the clauses regulating the payment and receipt of wergelds could not be altogether omitted, it may also have made necessary the modification of some of their provisions. One may even venture to trace motives in the making of modifications in favour of the fisc, which can hardly have had their root in ancient tribal custom.