wergeld
nounUK /ˈwɛəɡɛld/ · US /ˈweɹɡɛld/
Etymology Learned borrowing from Old English werġeld, wereġeld (“compensation for a man killed”), from Proto-West Germanic *werageld. More at wer, geld.
1
Especially, Historical, In Germanic law Blood money, the monetary value assigned to a person, set according to their rank, used to determine the compensation paid by the perpetrator of a crime to the victim in the case of injury or to the victim's kindred in the case of homicide; such a reparative payment or compensation.
- The first law we find is one of Æthelbirht's:—"if a freeman lie with a freeman's wife, let him pay for it with his 'wer-geld,' and provide another wife with his own money, and bring her to the other."1862, John Benjamin Marsden, The Influence of the Mosaic Code Upon Subsequent Legislation, →ISBN:
- If, then, at the time of the laws we look at the class of landowners who were prominent as odalmen or haulds—typical men with wergelds originally of 100 cows—they were not only men of full kindred whose full pedigree of freedom went back the necessary nine generations, but their grandfather’s grandfather must have possessed the land.1902, Frederic Seebohm, Tribal Custom in Anglo-Saxon Law, Longmans, Green and Co., page 272:
4 more examples
- In its opening article the equality of the wergeld of a Novgorodian Slav with that of a Kievan Russian is proclaimed.1973, George Vernadsky, Kievan Russia, →ISBN:
- But Isildur refused this counsel, saying: ‘This I will have as weregild for my father’s death, and my brother’s. Was it not I that dealt the Enemy his death-blow?’a. 1974 (date written), J[ohn] R[onald] R[euel] Tolkien, “Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age: In which These Tales Come to Their End”, in Christopher Tolkien, editor, The Silmarillion, 1st American edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Company, published 15 September 1977, →ISBN, page 295:
- In these clauses a lord had the duty of yielding up his esne if he was guilty of homicide and paying the dead man's wergeld. If the esne escaped, his lord had then to pay the value of a further man (that is, one hundred shillings), which was a ceorl's wergeld and may well have been the value of an esne as well.1995, David Anthony Edgell Pelteret, Slavery in Early Mediaeval England: From the Reign of Alfred Until the Twelfth Century, →ISBN:
- The folklaw set a price on every person's head and this price was easily converted into oath equivalents: if the wergeld to be paid for killing a churl was 200 shillings, for killing a thegn 1200 shillings, and for killing a king 7,200 shillings, then it follows that for a churl to sue a thegn he would need five other 200-shilling men prepared to swear alongside him, and to sue a king, thirty-five others.2002, Richard Firth Green, A Crisis of Truth: Literature and Law in Ricardian England, →ISBN:
- Related terms
- blood money, Lex Frisionum