Weregild

Weregild, or WERGILD, (A.S. wcr, 'man,' and geld, 'satisfaction'), a composition by which, by the custom of Anglo-Saxons, Franks, and other Teutonic peoples, homicide and other heinous crimes against the person were expiated. There was an established progressive rate of weregild for homicide, varying at different times and among different Teutonic tribes, from the weregild of the ecorl or peasant to that of the king. In Anglo-Saxon times the value of the king was 7200 shillings; an ealdorman, 2400; a king's thegn, 1200; an ordinary territorial thegn, 600; a ceorl, 200. In the time of Tacitus the weregild for homicide among the Germans was due to the relatives of the deceased; that for other crimes one-half to the injured party and one-half to the state. The sum paid to the relatives in case of homicide, also known as the man-wyrth, seems to have been looked on as the equivalent of the dead man's value. As the power of the community or king increased, the exaction of retribution for the death of its members was considered to be the duty of the state as well as of the relatives, and the principle of division was applied to homicide as well as minor crimes; each payment being a separate full equivalent for the value of the deceased, the one to appease the feud, the other to make atonement to the state. This double weregild is recognised in the compensation for the death of a king by the laws of the Mercians and Northumbrians. In the days of Edward the Elder the weregild had become a much more complicated penalty, the composition for homicide consisting of four different payments, two of which, the fight-wite, or penalty for a breach of the peace, and the weregild, went to the king as head of the state; while a sum called the halsfang was paid to the kindred to stay the hand of the avenger of blood, and the manbote was given to the overlord to compensate him for the loss of a vassal. The graduated scales of weregild in use among the different Teutonic nations throw much light on the gradations of society at the period. It does not appear that among the nations who recognised the principle of weregild the relatives were bound to accept a compensation for their kinsman's slaughter, in place of appeasing the death-feud by blood; the latter practice was often resorted to instead. It was only through the exertions of Archbishop Theodore that Egfred, the Christian king of the Angles of Northumbria, adopted the alternative of accepting a weregild for his brother slain in battle by the Mercians, in place of demanding the blood of the slayer. See VENDETTA.