Tribal Custom in Anglo-Saxon Law: Being an Essay Supplemental to (1) 'The English Village Community', (2) 'The Tribal System in Wales'Seebohm, Frederic
History
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
But if there be parentes on neither side,[99] paternal or
maternal, then that portion (_i.e._ the second half) is to go to
the fisc.
According to this clause, in the absence of the parentes, their half
share still has to be paid by the kindred of the slayer, but again the
fisc gets control of the lapsed portion which the parentes would have
taken had they been forthcoming.
[Sidenote: Addition to the Lex by Childebert I. A.D. 515-551 in the
interest of the widow (?) of the person slain.]
Amongst some clauses said to be added to the Lex Salica by Childebert I.
(A.D. 515 to 551) is a very important one, Tit. CI., _De hominem ingenuo
occiso_, which seems to show that, at that date, composition was still
encouraged by the law, but that some alteration was necessary in the
division of the wergeld amongst the kindred of the slain.[100]
Si quis hominem ingenuum occiderit et ille qui occiderit probatum
fuerit, ad parentibus debeat secundum legem componere; media
compositione filius habere debet. Alia medietate exinde ei debet
ut ad quarta de leude illa adveniat. Alia quarta pars parentibus
propinquis debent. Id est, tres de generatione patris et tres
de generatione matris. Si mater viva non fuerit, media parte de
leudae illi parentes inter se dividant. Hoc est, tres de patre
proximiores et tres de matre. Ita tamen qui proximiores fuerint
parentes de prædictis conditionibus prendant.
If any one shall have killed a freeman and he who slew shall have
been ascertained, he ought to make composition according to the
law to the parentes. The son (Cod. 2 ‘sons’) ought to have half
the composition. After that, of the other half it ought to be
for her (? the mother), so that she (?) comes in for a quarter of
that leuda (or wergeld). The other quarter ought to go to the near
parentes, _i.e._ three [parentillæ] of the kindred of the father
and three of the kindred of the mother. If the mother shall not be
alive, the half leuda (wergeld) those parentes divide amongst
themselves, _i.e._ the three proximiores [_i.e._ nearest parentes]
of the father and three of the mother, but so that the nearest
parentes under the aforesaid conditions shall take [two thirds].
Et tres partes illis duabus dividendam dimittat. Et nam et illis
duabus ille qui proximior fuerit, illa tertia parte duas partes
prendant, et tertia parte patre suo demittat.
Three parts again it leaves to be divided between the other two
[parentillæ]. For also of those two the nearest [parentilla]
takes two thirds and leaves one third for [the parentilla of] the
previous ancestor.[101]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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