longer in [18] his possession. /1/ There are later provisions
making a master liable for the wrongs committed by his slave by
his command. /2/ In the laws adapted by the Thuringians from the
earlier sources, it is provided in terms that the master is to
pay for all damage done by his slaves. /4/

In short, so far as I am able to trace the order of development
in the customs of the German tribes, it seems to have been
entirely similar to that which we have already followed in the
growth of Roman law. The earlier liability for slaves and animals
was mainly confined to surrender; the later became personal, as
at Rome.

The reader may begin to ask for the proof that all this has any
bearing on our law of today. So far as concerns the influence of
the Roman law upon our own, especially the Roman law of master
and servant, the evidence of it is to be found in every book
which has been written for the last five hundred years. It has
been stated already that we still repeat the reasoning of the
Roman lawyers, empty as it is, to the present day. It will be
seen directly whether the German folk-laws can also be followed
into England.

In the Kentish laws of Hlothhaere and Eadrie (A.D. 680) [19] it
is said, "If any one's slave slay a freeman, whoever it be, let
the owner pay with a hundred shillings, give up the slayer," &c.
/1/ There are several other similar provisions. In the nearly
contemporaneous laws of Ine, the surrender and payment are simple
alternatives. "If a Wessex slave slay an Englishman, then shall
he who owns him deliver him up to the lord and the kindred, or