AVENGER OF BLOOD. In primitive so ciety, the person, usually the next of kin of the murdered man, charged with the duty of aveng ing the crime of murder by slaying the murderer. The legal recognition of this duty and its regu lation by law are really the beginnings of a sys tem of criminal law. The crimes with which primitive law concerns itself are crimes of yin knee — man - killing, wounding, and robbery. Their punishment, however, is not a, with us, a matter for the State, but is left to the injured person or to his kinsman. This legalized right of private vengeance, called the blood feud (see BLOOD FEUD ) , was, in course of time, mitigated by the doctrine of sanctuary (q.v.), which held the vengeance of blood in abeyance until pas sin us had time to cool and the justification of the deed could be made to appear (see ASYLUM) ; and by the institution of the wergild (q.v.), whereby the wrongdoer was permitted to com mute the natural penalty of his crime for a money payment. This weregild went to the
avenger of blood, and the barbarous coder of the early Middle Ages contain elaborate provisions for determining the amounts to be paid and the persons entitled, as avengers of blood, to share in the payment.
The Mosaic law (Num. xxxv.) recognized this institution of primitive society, but placed it under regulations, prohibiting the commutation of the penalty of death for money, and appoint ing 'cities of refuge' for the manslayer who was not really a murderer. (See CITY OF REFUGE.) The Koran sanctions the avenging of blood by the nearest kinsman, but also sanctions the pecuniary commutation for murder. The primi tive custom subsists in full force among the Arabs at this day. The hereditary feuds of fam ilies, clans, and tribes in barbarous and semi barbarous countries are survivals of this insti tution.