weregild

Also known as wenegeld

thumb|upright=1.5|Image of a murder by a minor and the subsequent paying of wergild, in Heidelberger Sachsenspiegel Cgm 165 fol. 11r. This is one of the only images of wergild payment from the Middle Ages.

In the Vinony graph

Within Vinony's link graph, weregild is referenced by 345 other articles, and connects out to Gondor, The Dresden Files and Salic law.

Vinony files it under 11th century in law, 6th century in law and Compensation for victims of crime.

Its subject is documented across 25 Wikipedia language editions.

Wikidata facts

Instance of: blood money

Sources (2)

via Wikidata · CC0

~10 min read

Encyclopedic overview

10 sections

Contents

Etymology and terminology
Overview
Origins
Amount
In literature
Medieval
Modern
See also
References
Sources

Weregild (also spelled wergild, wergeld (in archaic/historical usage of English), weregeld, etc.), also known as man price (blood money), was a tradition in Germanic law whereby a monetary value was established for a person's life, to be paid as a fine or as compensatory damages to the person's family if that person was killed or injured by another.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “weregild” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.