customary laws. These laws are mostly a codification of customs that had been accepted as law throughout the tribe through common practice. Drew describes Gundobad's work "as a recording of the customs of his people issued with the consent of the people". The later additions (Titles LXXXVIII-CV and Constitutiones Extravagantes), which are believed to have been issued primarily by Sigismund, are more rhetorical. They begin with general legal principles and dictate from the judgment of the king how a disputed situation may be handled. It is this conflict between customary and statutory law that one sees the blending of Burgundian and Roman laws. Roman influence is apparent in the very act of writing down Germanic customary law. According to Edward Peters in his foreword to Drew's translation of the Burgundian Code, Roman ideals triumphed when King Gundobad began organizing his people's customary laws in order for their codification. King Gundobad's singular action to codify laws can also be seen as a major change in Germanic culture as reflecting the emergence of the king as supreme judge and lawmaker. The Burgundians already had traditions and laws for arbitrating disputes among its people, but Romans brought with them organizational structure for a more centralized government. A great number of laws deal specifically with Germanic-style monetary retribution for intentional physical harm on one another. Punitive fines, rather than further physical injury or capital punishment, were used to regulate physical injury to prevent blood feud between two members of a tribal kinship. Along with money payments in compensation for physical injuries, the Burgundian Code also incorporates the wergeld, another Germanic institution. Drew defines wergelds as "the sum at which a man was valued and by the payment of which his death could be compensated". The wergeld of the upper class of freemen was worth a payment of 300 solidi, the underclass freeman worth 200 solidi, and the lowest class of freeman was 150 solidi. Drew believes that the family was the absolute most important social institution in Germanic tribes. Additionally, its inheritance laws were based on Germanic custom. Land was passed down through a strict law of familial succession, which differs greatly from Roman laws on property that allow property to be acquired through ways other than hereditary inheritance, such as buying and selling or testimonial succession. Among other features, a widow was entitled to a life interest in a third of her husband's