Dictionary:
wer·geld (wûr'gĕld')  also wer·gild
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[Middle English wargeld, from Old English wergeld : wer, man + geld, payment.]
| British History: wergeld |
Wergeld was the fixed amount, or blood-price, payable by a killer and his kin to his victim's kinsmen. A man's kin was obliged to seek vengeance for his untimely death, but payment of wergeld was an alternative to blood-feud, and a means of keeping order in a violent society. The amount of wergeld was also an important mark of social status.
| Obscure Words: wergild |
| Wikipedia: Weregild |
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Look up wergeld in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. |
Weregild (alternative spellings: wergild, wergeld, weregeld, etc.) in early Germanic law was a reparational payment usually demanded of a person guilty of homicide or other wrongful death.
The payment of weregild was an important legal mechanism during civil war for the Anglo-Saxon society; the other common form of legal reparation at this time was blood revenge. The payment was typically made to the family or to the clan.
No distinction was made between murder and manslaughter until these distinctions were instituted by the Holy Roman imperial law in the 12th century.[1]. Payment of the weregild was gradually replaced with capital punishment, starting around the 9th century, and almost entirely by the 12th century when it began to cease as a practice throughout the Holy Roman Empire.[2]
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Look up were-, geld, or gild in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. |
The word weregild is composed of were, a word meaning "man" (as in werewolf) and geld, meaning "payment, fee", as in Danegeld. Geld is the Old English word for money, and is still the Dutch and German word for money. In Danish the word is gæld and means "debt".
The same concept outside Germanic culture is known as blood money. Native terms include ericfine in Ireland and galanas in Wales, "vira" ("вира") in Russia and główczyzna in Poland.
The standard weregeld for a freeman appears to have been 200 solidi (shillings) in the Migration period, an amount reflected as the basic amount due for the death of a ceorl both in Anglo-Saxon and continental law codes. This fee could however be multiplied according to the social rank of the victim and the circumstances of the crime. For example, the 8th century Lex Alamannorum sets the weregeld 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.
The size of the weregild was largely conditional upon the social rank of the victim. A regular enslaved man (ceorl) was worth 200 shillings in 9th century Mercian law (twyhyndeman), a nobleman was worth 1200 (twelfhyndeman). The law code even mentions the weregeld for a king, at 30000, composed of 15000 for the man, paid to the royal family, and 15000 for the kingship, paid to the people. An archbishop is likewise valued at 15000. The weregild for a Welshman was 110 if he owned at least one hide of land, and 80 if he was landless.
Thralls and slaves technically commanded no weregild, but it was commonplace to make a nominal payment in the case of a thrall and the value of the slave in such a case. A shilling was defined as the value of a cow in Kent or elsewhere, a sheep. The weregild for women relative to that of men of equal rank varied: Among the Alamanni, it was double the weregild of men, among the Saxons half that of men.
A classic example of a dispute over the weregild of a slave is contained in Iceland's Egil's Saga.
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. [3]
In the epic poem Beowulf, at lines 456-472, Hroðgar recalls the story of how Ecgþeow (Beowulf's father) once came to him for help, for he had slain Heaðolaf, a man from another tribe called the Wulfings, and either couldn't pay the wergild or they refused to accept it. Hroðgar had married Wealhþeow, who probably belonged to the Wulfing tribe, and was able to use his kinship ties to persuade the Wulfings to accept the wergild and end the feud. Hroðgar sees Beowulf's offer as a son's gratitude for what Hroðgar had done for Beowulf's father.
In the novel The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien, the journal of Isildur reveals that he justified taking the One Ring as a weregild for the deaths of his father (Elendil) and brother (Anárion) in battle. Appendix A of The Return of the King also mentions a rich weregild of gold sent by Túrin II, Steward of Gondor, to King Folcwine of Rohan, after the death of his twin sons, Folcred and Fastred, in battle in Ithilien.
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 | Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| British History. A Dictionary of British History. Copyright © 2001, 2004 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Obscure Words. © 2008 by Michael A. Fischer http://home.comcast.net/~wwftd. Read more |
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| Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Weregild". Read more |
