Tribal Custom in Anglo-Saxon Law: Being an Essay Supplemental to (1) 'The English Village Community', (2) 'The Tribal System in Wales'Seebohm, Frederic
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Tribal Custom in Anglo-Saxon Law: Being an Essay Supplemental to (1) 'The English Village Community', (2) 'The Tribal System in Wales'
Seebohm, Frederic
Anglo-Saxons; Law, Anglo-Saxon; Law, Medieval; Tribes -- Great Britain
How could this be remedied but by altering the figures of the wergeld and
the compositions for wounds, and inserting silver values instead of the
gold ones? This seems to have been clumsily done, the other clauses in
the laws being apparently left unaltered or only partially altered. But
assuming that the wergelds as they appear in the present text of Tit.
II. are stated in silver solidi of twelve denarii, let us divide them by
three, so as to restore them to gold values in solidi of three tremisses.
The wergeld of the nobilis of 1440 solidi divided by three becomes 480
solidi of three tremisses. And if, following very common precedents, we
take this wergeld of the nobilis, whether from his noble birth or natural
official position, to be a triple wergeld, then the missing wergeld of
the _liber_ or _ingenuus_ would be 160 solidi, as the passage in the
Ripuarian laws so often quoted declared it to be.
[Sidenote: Wergeld of ‘liber’ then 160 solidi.]
The wergelds would then stand thus:--
Nobilis 480 solidi of three tremisses.
[Liber 160 ” ” ]
Litus 40 ” ”
or in the local solidi of two tremisses:--
Nobilis 720 solidi or bullocks.
[Liber 240 ” ” ]
Litus 60 ” ”
These then are the figures which, if we are right, were the original
figures of the Title _De homicidiis_.
IV. LEX ANGLIORUM ET WERINORUM, HOC EST THURINGORUM.
We may probably follow Richthofen[169] in his conclusions that the
Thuringians of these laws were the tribes settled with the Anglii
and Werini in North Thuringia, and that they were promulgated under
Charlemagne about A.D. 802.
[Sidenote: Wergelds of the Anglii and Werini.]
In the first title the wergelds for homicide are stated:--
Adaling 600 solidi.
Liber 200 solidi.
Servus 30 solidi.
These are evidently unaltered gold values.
[Sidenote: A half wergeld for destruction of an eye, hand, or foot.]
The rest of the first five titles relate to wounds, and we need only
mention that the destruction of an eye, hand, or foot, or a blow causing
loss of hearing, was to be paid for with _half_ the wergeld of each
class, following in this respect the custom of the Frisian and Saxon
tribes.
These five titles in the Corvey Manuscript of the tenth century
constitute a whole under the title ‘Lex Thuringorum.’ The remaining
titles are, in this manuscript, added to the Lex Saxonum, to which,
however, they do not appear to belong.
[Sidenote: Triple wergeld of the Adaling.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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