Wergild Sentence Examples

This wergild is equal to that of an archbishop and one-half of that of a king.

He has a fivefold wergild, summons the nobles and clergy for purposes of deliberation, calls out the host, administers justice and regulates finance.

If he was slain, a fixed sum (wergild), varying according to his station, had to be paid to his relatives, while a further but smaller sum (manbot) was due to his lord.

Within the ceorlisc class we find similar subdivisions, though they were not marked by a difference in wergild.

His status is shown by his wergild.

Except in Kent his wergild was fixed at two hundred shillings, or one-sixth of that of a thegn, and he is undoubtedly the twyhynde man of Anglo-Saxon law.

In Kent his wergild was considerably higher, and his status probably also, but his position in this kingdom is a matter of controversy.

Here the wergild of the ceorlisc class amounted to ioo shillings, each containing twenty silver coins (sceattas), as against zoo shillings of four (in Wessex five) silver coins, and was thus very much greater than the latter.

Again, there was apparently but one ges16cund class in Kent, with a wergild of 300 shillings, while, on the other hand, below the ceorlisc class we find three classes of persons described as laetas, who corresponded in all probability to the liti or freedmen of the continental laws, and who possessed wergilds of 80, 60 and 40 shillings respectively.

According to a document which probably dates from the 10th century, the wergild of an aetheling was fixed at 15,000 thrymsas, or 11,250 shillings.

Under the Merovingians it was a hierarchy wherein grades were marked by the varied scale of the Disruption wergild, a man being worth anything from thirty to six of the hundred gold pieces.