Wergeld
Wergeld ( Old High German weragelt, wergelt , in Old High German who "man"; cf. werewolf ) was the atonement in Germanic law . In the event of a manslaughter , the manslaughter had to pay compensation to those relatives of the victim who otherwise would have had to carry out the blood revenge or the feud . As the acceptance of Wergeld removed the right to feud from the injured clan, it was one of the important early legal instruments for social peacekeeping in times when the state monopoly of force did not yet exist or it was not enforceable. The wergeld went to the next male relatives of the injured party; did not exist, even for women. Wergeld was applied not only to homicide but also to other offenses such as: B. rape or wounding.
Other names were money man , peace money , re-money or Mutsühne , in Old Frisian Criminal Law ( Lex Frisionum , 8th Century) weregildus and compositio .
Wergeld amount
Wergeld and its amount are mentioned in many medieval sources, such as the early medieval Lex Frisionum or the 13th century Sachsenspiegel by Eike von Repgow . From the 12th century onwards, wergeld was increasingly replaced by public penalties under the state peace laws.
Saxony mirror
In the third book of the Sachsenspiegel, Wergelder is set out in Article 45; Article 51 also includes money for the killing of animals. In addition to the wergeld, if a court proceeding was necessary despite the payment, betting money or a fine had to be paid to the prince in order to make up for the public breach of peace.
The following tariffs were available in the Sachsenspiegel:
- Wergeld
- for a free man: 18 pounds (then the equivalent of 18 riding horses)
- for an independent tenant and non-resident tenant: £ 10
- for a woman half her husband's wergeld, she was not married to her father.
- Buses
- for a free man: 30 pounds
- for a free tenant and non-landlord: 15 pounds
- for a woman half the penance of her husband, she was not married to her father.
- Wergeld for animals
- for a chicken: half a penny
- for a goose or a duck: a penny
- for a brooding goose or hen: three pfennigs
- for a piglet or a goat: three pfennigs
- for a lamb or veal: four pfennigs
- for a foal: 1 schilling = 12 pfennigs
- for a farm dog: 3 schillings
- for a pig or beef 4 shillings
- for a mother sow or a breeding boar: 5 shillings
- for donkey, mule, draft ox or field mare: 8 schillings
- for other work horses: 12 shillings
- for a riding horse: 1 pound = 20 shillings
In the case of particularly valuable horses (e.g. a war horse ) there was no fixed wergeld, here the wergeld was based on the actual damage.
Wergeld in the Kiev Rus
The Russkaja Pravda in the East Slavic Kievan Rus contained a similar catalog of wergeld , which goes back to an oral Germanic ( Warsaw ) customary law. Here the wergeld was called wira (Cyrillic вира) or wirwnaja (Cyrillic вирьвная). It was 40 or 80 hryvnia , depending on the number of people killed .
See also
Web links
Remarks
- ↑ The root who is already Indo-European : * wīro-, * wiro- 'man': skt. vīras 'hero', lit. výras 'man'; lat. vir , got. wair , air. fer . - Szemerényi, Oswald: Introduction to Comparative Linguistics. 3rd edition Darmstadt 1989, p. 45.
- ↑ Cf. Andreas Roth in: Lexikon des Mittelalters. Vol. 8, Col. 2199–2201 sv Wergeld .
- ^ Sachsenspiegel, Book 3: Article 45 and Article 51 (Text Archive of the German Legal Dictionary)
- ↑ ( Page no longer available , search in web archives: Russkaja Prawda ), Article 1 (Old East Slavic with New Russian explanations).