 The 20th century Reform Rabbi Gunther Plaut argued that the discussions of cities of refuge in and and were composed during a later, settled period, in order to accommodate the disappearance of local altars that previously served as places of refuge.Explaining the origins of the law that one can see in the Cities of Refuge, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. wrote that early forms of legal procedure were grounded in vengeance.Roman law and German law started from the blood feud, which led to the composition, at first optional, then compulsory, by which the feud was bought off.