| 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 was a leysing[311] | 80 | ” ” |
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.
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.
So too, as we have seen, under the Bavarian laws the freedman’s wergeld went to his lord.[312] Under the Frisian law the wergeld of the litus went to his lord.[313] Under Ripuarian law even the ‘homo denarialis’—the freedman who became a Frank with a full wergeld—was recognised as having at first no kindred. If he had no children, his property went to the fisc. And it was not till the third generation that his descendants had full rights of inheritance.[314] We have already found abundant evidence of the continued force of tribal custom and tribal instincts in regard to the importance of kindred while considering the meaning and function of the hyndens in connection with the twelve-hynde and twy-hynde classes of the Anglo-Saxon laws. These remarkable correspondences between the position held by the læts in Kent and that of the leysings and freedmen and liti of the Continental laws, without our making too much of them, may fairly be taken as additional evidence of the tenacity of tribal custom in these matters.[315]