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Weregild (Alternative spellings: wergild, wergeld, weregeld, etc.) was a reparational payment usually demanded of a person guilty of homicide or other wrongful death, although it could also be demanded in other cases of serious crime.
Overview
The payment of weregild was an important legal mechanism in early northern European societies, such as those of the Vikings, and Anglo-Saxons; the other common form of legal reparation at this time was blood revenge. The payment was typically made to the family or to the clan. The word means, literally, "man price". If these payments were not made, or refused by the offended party, a blood feud would ensue.
The size of the weregild in cases of murder was largely conditional upon the social rank of the victim. Thralls and slaves technically commanded no weregild, but it was commonplace to make a nominal payment in the case of a thrall and the value of the slave in such a case. A classic example of a dispute over the weregild of a slave is contained in Egil's Saga.
Weregild was also known to the Celts, who called it ericfine in Ireland and galanas in Wales. Other cultures had similar customs, for instance, the Slavonic glowczyzna.
Etymology
The word weregild is comprised of were, a word meaning "man" (as in werewolf) and geld, meaning "payment." Etymologically, were is related to the Latin vir, and the modern German Wehr, as in sich zur Wehr setzen, or "to give resistance". Thus the root has come to indicate proper attributes of man, or virility, rather than a man per se.
Other sources trace were to the Old Norse Warg (vargr), a euphemism for wolf (ulfr), and still used in modern Swedish as a word for wolf. The Old English warg "large wolf" is a cognate. The Proto-Germanic *wargaz meant "strangler", and hence "evildoer, criminal, outcast".
Geld is the root of English gilt, derivatives of which are still the Dutch and German words for money.
See also
Anglo-Saxon England | Punishments | Germanic paganism | Viking Age
"Weregild"