The wergild , literally “price of the man”, (also written weregild , wergeld or weregeld ) is a another or amount of money requested in repair from a guilty person of a murder, serious Crime. This tradition exerted a big role in old civilizations of Northern Europe, in particular at the Viking S and the Francs. The Celtes also knew this habit, under the name of ericfine . The amount of the wergild in the event of murder depended rather largely on the social status to which the victim belonged.

Indeed Wergild of the Germanic common law is well a repair, and not a fine with Greek. I.e. there was no automatic equivalence between a crime and a pecuniary amount. Instead of that, the parentèle of the offended part and that of the accused part discussed, framed by an assembly of Old. If they fell from agreement on an amount (often in kind, but in currency in the zones of contact with the Roman empire), one regarded the business as regulated. If not, the other common form of legal repair at that time was revenge by blood, called Faide, identical to the law of retaliation.

The Salic law, legal provision private of the Frank saliens, was initially based mainly on the system of the wergild, but on the wire of his successive rehandlings, the king imposed more and more the sorrow adapted, drifting towards a system of fines. Thus, each physical offense had as an answer a financial compensation for the victim envisaged in advance (and more negotiated on a case-by-case basis). The Church strongly encouraged this system, because thus was avoided revenge, difficult to channel because a made insult could generate a lasting dispute of the generations between two families, whereas the system of the wergeld or the fine made it possible to settle the disagreement once and for all.

See too

• romano-Germanic Right