Weregild
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Weregild (also spelled wergild, wergeld (in archaic/historical usage of English), weregeld, etc.), also known as man price (blood money), was a precept in some historical legal codes whereby a monetary value was established for a person's life, to be paid as a fine or as compensatory damages to the person's family if that person was killed or injured by another.
Etymology and terminology
The compound noun weregild means "remuneration for a man", from
Several alternative terms are also found, such as leodis ("man") and leodardi ("violation of a man") in the
Overview
A weregild or wergeld was a defined value placed on every man graded according to rank, used as a basis of a fine or compensation for murder, disablement, injury, and certain other serious crimes against that person. It was assessed from the guilty party, payable as
The weregild was codified, for example, under
Weregild payment was an important legal mechanism in early
No distinction was made between murder and manslaughter until these distinctions were instituted by the re-introduction of Roman law in the 12th century.[12]
Payment of the weregild was gradually replaced with capital punishment due to Christianization, starting around the 9th century, and almost entirely by the 12th century when weregild began to cease as a practice throughout the Holy Roman Empire.[13]
Weregild from
Rank | Thrymsa |
---|---|
King | 30,000 |
Archbishop/ aetheling |
15,000 |
Bishop/ealdorman | 8,000 |
Hold/high-reeve | 4,000 |
Mass-thegn/secular thegn | 2,000 |
Prospering ceorl | 2,000 |
Ceorl | 200 |
Prospering Welshman | 120s |
Non-prospering Welshman | 80s |
Landless Welshman | 70s |
Origins
Wergild first appears in the European historical record in 500 AD in the Lex Burgundionum,[15] but the concept of paying blood-money is found widely in many pre-modern societies.[16] Scholars debate if wergild was a traditional Germanic legal concept, or if it developed from a Roman predecessor.[17] Christophe Gamby argued in 2013 that the entire institution was essentially derived from Roman law, whereas Harald Siems and Ralph Mathisen both rejected this concept in 2021, arguing that nothing comparable existed in Roman Law.[18] However, Siems and Mathisen both argue that Roman law still influenced the definitions of crimes and possibly legal procedures in the "barbarian law codes" that first contain wergild.[19]
Amount
The size of the weregild was largely conditional upon the
In the
In the 8th century, the Lex Alamannorum sets the weregild for a duke or archbishop at three times the basic value (600 shillings), while the killing of a low ranking cleric was fined with 300, raised to 400 if the cleric was attacked while he was reading mass.
During the reign of
In 9th century
In literature
Medieval
A classic example of a dispute over the weregild of a slave is contained in Iceland's Egil's Saga.
In the
In the Story of Grettir the Strong, chapter 27, "The Suit for the Slaying of Thorgils Makson", Thorgeir conveys to court Thorgils Arison's offer of weregild as atonement for killing Thorgils Makson.[22]
In the
Modern
In the novel
In
In Rick Riordan's novel The Hammer of Thor, Hearthstone, an elf, must pay a wergild for his brother Andiron's death when they were children. Hearthstone, the older brother, was distracted and playing with rocks when a Brunnmigi emerged from a well and killed Andiron. Since Hearthstone was deaf, he did not notice until it was too late. Hearthstone was forced by their father to skin the large beast by himself, which was turned into a rug and placed on the floor of his room. To pay his wergild, he had to cover every single hair with gold earned from his father, generally by doing chores. Every meal and any free time, among other things, cost Hearthstone earned gold. This task was not accomplished until years later, and his father, Alderman, was reluctant to consider the debt paid, but finally conceded that Hearthstone was released from the debt.
See also
- Diyya
- Éraic
- Galanas
- Główszczyzna
- Tribalism
- Value of life
- Wrongful death
References
- ^ Esders 2021, p. 1.
- ^ a b Haubrichs 2021, p. 94.
- ^ Schmidt-Wiegand 2010e, pp. 914–915.
- ^ Haubrichs 2021, p. 107.
- ^ Haubrichs 2021, pp. 96–99.
- ^ Schmidt-Wiegand 2010e, p. 915.
- ^ Haubrichs 2021, pp. 107–108.
- ^ dictionary.reference.com, retrieved 2011-02-06
- ISBN 9780521548540
- ^ Loyd, William H. (1914), "Executions at Common Law", University of Pennsylvania Law Review, 62: 355
- ISBN 978-1-317-86621-3.
- ^ John Fosberry (translator [clarification needed]), Criminal Justice through the Ages. Mittalalterliches Kriminalmuseum, Rothenburg ob der Tauber (1990 Eng. trans. 1993), p. 49, pp. 99-101.
- ^ Fosberry, pp. 48-52.
- ISBN 978-0-415-14366-0. Retrieved 30 April 2020.
- ^ Esders 2021, p. 3.
- ^ Esders 2021, p. 6.
- ^ Schmidt-Wiegand 2010e, pp. 922–923.
- ^ Esders 2021, p. 15.
- ^ Esders 2021, pp. 15–16.
- ^ A shilling was defined as the value of a cow in Kent or elsewhere, a sheep.
- ^ Byock, pp. 40-46.
- ^ sacred-texts.com, The Story of Grettir the Strong: translation by Eiríkr Magnússon and Willam Morris (1869)
Sources
- Byock, Jesse L. (1990) Saga of the Volsungs. University of California Press. ISBN 0140447385.
- Esders, Stefan (2021). "Chapter 1 Wergild and the Monetary Logic of Early Medieval Conflict Resolution". In Bothe, Lukas; Esders, Stefan; Nijdam, Han (eds.). Wergeld, Compensation and Penance: The Monetary Logic of Early Medieval Conflict Resolution. pp. 1–37. .
- Haubrichs, Wolfgang (2021). "Chapter 4 Wergeld: The Germanic Terminology of Compositio and Its Implementation in the Early Middle Ages". In Bothe, Lukas; Esders, Stefan; Nijdam, Han (eds.). Wergeld, Compensation and Penance: The Monetary Logic of Early Medieval Conflict Resolution. pp. 92–112. .
- Rabin, Andrew, The Political Writings of Archbishop Wulfstan of York (Manchester, 2015).
- Schmidt-Wiegand, Ruth (2010e) [2006]. "Wergeld". Germanische Altertumskunde Online.