Wergeld

Alternative forms

• wehrgeld
• weregeld
• weregild
• wergild

Origin

From Middle English wergeld, from Old English wergeld ("compensation for a man killed"), from Proto-Germanic *werageldaz ("weregild"), equivalent to wer("man") + geld("payment"). Cognate with German Wergeld. More at wer, geld.

Full definition of wergeld

Noun

1. (historical, in Germanic legal) blood money, the monetary value assigned to a person, set according to their rank, used to determine the compensation paid by the perpetrator of a crime to the victim in the case of injury or to the victim's kindred in the case of homicide.
• 1973, George Vernadsky, Kievan Russia, ISBN 0300016476.In its opening article the equality of the wergeld of a Novgorodian Slav with that of a Kievan Russian is proclaimed.
• 1995, David Anthony Edgell Pelteret, Slavery in Early Mediaeval England: From the Reign of Alfred Until the Twelfth Century, ISBN 0851158293.In these clauses a lord had the duty of yielding up his esne if he was guilty of homicide and paying the dead man's wergeld. If the esne escaped, his lord had then to pay the value of a further man (that is, one hundred shillings), which was a ceorl's wergeld and may well have been the value of an esne as well.
2. (historical, in Germanic legal) Compensation thusly determined and paid; a reparative payment.
• 1977, J.R.R. Tolkien, (HarperCollins), pages 353–354:Isildur would not surrender Ruling Ring to Elrond and Círdan who stood by. ... ‘This I will have as weregild for my father's death, and my brother's. Was it not I that dealt the Enemy his death-blow?’
• 2002, Richard Firth Green, A Crisis of Truth: Literature and Law in Ricardian England, ISBN 0812218094.The folklaw set a price on every person's head and this price was easily converted into oath equivalents: if the wergeld to be paid for killing a churl was 200 shillings, for killing a thegn 1200 shillings, and for killing a king 7,200 shillings, then it follows that for a churl to sue a thegn he would need five other 200-shilling men prepared to swear alongside him, and to sue a king, thirty-five others.