It is not needful to follow the speculations of various authorities as to what became of the homestead and landed rights abandoned by the slayer when he threw the chrenecruda upon his kindred and leaped, ungirt and unshod, over the fence of the inclosure. It is begging the question to call it his _Grundstück_ in the sense of a plot of land individually owned. Whether it was so, or whether under Salic custom land was held by family groups, as in the case of the Cymric gwely, is what the clause _De chrenecruda_ does not tell us. The question may perhaps have easily solved itself. The homestead and grazing rights, under tribal custom, might probably simply merge and sink into the common rights of the kindred, _i.e._ the neighbouring kinsmen would get the benefit of them. Even if the slayer, now himself slain or an exile, had held a privileged or official position as chief of his family, it would not follow that his successor (having doubtless already a homestead of his own) would care to succeed to the one left vacant. It is much more likely that tribal superstition would leave the murderer’s homestead to decay. Even the sons of a person, whose kindred had left him to perish by refusing the necessary help in the payment of the wergeld of his victim, might well refuse to ‘uncover’ the haunted hearth of their father, whilst if the wergeld were paid the slayer would return to his old homestead. Finally it must be remembered that in the tribal stage of land occupation the value of land itself bore a very small proportion to the value of the cattle upon it. And so the ‘Grundstück’ of the slayer would be as nothing compared with the value of the hundred cows of a normal wergeld. II. THE DIVISION OF CLASSES AS SHOWN BY THE AMOUNT OF THE WERGELD. Turning now to the amount of the wergeld, something may be learned of the division of classes under the Lex Salica. Tit. XLI. fixes the amount of the wergeld of the typical freeman who is described as ‘the Frank or the barbarian man who lives under the Lex Salica.’ [Sidenote: The wergeld of the freeman living under Salic law 200 solidi.] The amount, as throughout the Lex are all the payments, is stated in so many denarii and so many solidi--8,000 denarii, _i.e._ 200 solidi. And that the Frank or barbarian living under the Lex Salica was the typical freeman is shown by the title _De debilitatibus_,[106] which fixes the payment for the destruction of an eye, hand, or foot at 100 solidi. Half the wergeld is the highest payment for eye, hand, and foot ever exacted by the Continental laws, and 100 solidi certainly cannot apply to any grade of persons with a lower wergeld than 200 solidi. Tit. XLI. is as follows:-- Si quis ingenuo franco aut barbarum, qui legem Salega vivit, occiderit, cui fuerit adprobatum viii. _M._ den. qui fac. sol. cc. culp. jud.