WERGILD, wregild. WEREGILD, or WERGELD (AS.. compensation for a man.) A composition by which. according to the custom of the Anglo-Saxons, Franks, and other Teu tonic peoples. homicide and other heinous (-Hines against the person were expiated. There was an established. progressive rate of wergild. varying at different times and among different Teutonic peoples. from the wergild of the ecorl or peasant to that of the King. The sum paid to the rela tives in ease of homicide. also known as the man- tryrt 11, seems to have been looked on as the equivalent of the dead man's value. But man tryra, is usually distinguished from wergild. Thm; for the killing of another man's slave a man-oryrth had to be paid, but no wergild proper. As the power of the eommunity or King in creased, the exaction of ret Tm mhou for the death of its members was considered to be the duty of the State, as well as of the relatives, and the principle of division was applied to homicide as well as minor crimes; each payment bting separate full equivalent for the value of the de ceased, the 1111e to appease the fetid, the other to make atonement to the State. By the Mercian
law the King's wergild was 7200 shillings pay able to his relatives, and at the same time an equal sum, the eynebut. was doe to his people. The graduated scales of wergild in use among the different Teutonic nations throw much light on the gradations of society at the period, general it does not appear that. among the na tions who recognized the principle of wergild, the relatives were bound to accept a compensation for their kinsman's slaughter, in place of appeas ing the death-feud by blond; the latter practice was often resorted to instead. A similar prin ciple to that of wergild for homicide seems to have been recognized by the Celtic nations, and there are traces of it in the Mosaic code. Con sult Robertson, ,‘Irotland Under Iler Early Eilfys, vol. ii. (Edinburgh, 1802), where the wer gilds of the different Germanic races are given.