weregild
Sign in to savethumb|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.
Article
10 sectionsContents
- Etymology and terminology
- Overview
- Origins
- Amount
- In literature
- Medieval
- Modern
- See also
- References
- Sources
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.
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.