Gif bana oðbyrste, twam manwyrðum hine man forgelde ⁊ hine gecænne mid godum æwdum ꝥ he þane banan begeten ne mihte.
4. If the slayer escape, let [the owner] pay for him with two manwyrths and let him prove with good compurgators that he could not catch the slayer.
This reading of these clauses is not that of Thorpe or of Schmid, but that approved by the best authorities.[308]
Were the wergelds 300 and 100, or are they half-wergelds?
Following this reading as philologically the most correct one, the inference at first sight might be that under Kentish law the wergeld of the eorlcundman was 300 Kentish scillings and that of the freeman 100 scillings.
But there may be reason to doubt the correctness of such an inference.
The clauses limit and lessen the owner’s liability.
For the present we may leave the question of the amount of the wergelds to consider the meaning of the clauses in their main intention. And this seems to be clear. Henceforth the owner of an esne was not to be accountable for the wergeld of the person slain or any part of it further than that if an eorlcundman payable for with 300 scillings be slain he must hand over the esne and three times his manworth in addition; and in the case of the freeman payable for with 100 scillings he must hand over the esne and add one manworth in addition. That is to say, the esne was in both cases to be handed over and a manworth for each hundred scillings of the amount at which the person slain is paid for.
Now, I think, we must conclude that these clauses were intended to make an innovation upon ancient custom rather than to confirm it. And therefore it may be well to compare with them the parallel evidence of the laws of other tribes, as to the responsibility of an owner for his slave’s homicides.
Under tribal custom at first complete.