Weregild
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Weregild (also spelled wergild, wergeld, weregeld, etc.) was a value placed on every human being and every piece of property in the Salic Code. Also known as "man price." If property was stolen, or someone was injured or killed, the guilty person would have to pay weregild as restitution to the victim's family or to the owner of the property.
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See also
- Anglo-Saxon law
- Atonement
- Beot
- Blood feud
- Blood law
- Blood libel
- Blood money
- Danegeld
- Diyya
- Ericfine
- Feud
- Galanas
- Germanic law
- Główszczyzna
- Kanun
- Leges inter Brettos et Scottos
- Leibzoll
- Lex Frisionum
- Religious minority
- Social hierarchy, or social caste - Old Germanic society was sternly "socio-ethnically" hierarchical (Eye for an Eye, Miller) and the weregild was accordingly differentiated for each unique individual "tribe-member" or "tribesman"; the weregild revealing the ethnocentric and/or "ethnic-folkish" emphases of ancient Indo-European tribalism (see above cited).
- Tallage
- Tribalism and its sociological meaning - The ancient Germanic custom and notion of weregild represents a quintessential illustration of early-to-middle-stage tribalism - necessarily ethnocentric (ethnocentrism an anthropological universal among tribal-stage societies) - beginning to attempt to develop conceptual-moral "justice" - the judicial prevention of societal self-destruction by endless, wild, lawless vendettas and might makes right "fist-law".
- Value of life
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