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Wergild
Weregild (also spelled wergild, wergeld (in archaic/historical usage of English), weregeld, etc.), also known as man price ( blood money), was a precept in some historical legal codes 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. Etymology and terminology The compound noun weregild means "remuneration for a man", from Proto-Germanic "man, human" and "retaliation, remuneration". In the south Germanic area, this is the most common term used to mean "payment for killing a man" (Old High German , Langobardic , Old English ), whereas in the North Germanic area, the more common term is Old Norse , with the same meaning. Wolfgang Haubrichs argues that wergild is "undoubtably a West Germanic word" which spread throughout the various Germanic-speaking peoples, but which in the north was replaced with since the meaning of the element "wer-" had been ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
High-reeve
High-reeve () was a title taken by some Anglo-Saxon, English magnates during the 10th and 11th centuries, and is particularly associated with the Earls, ealdormen and high-reeves of Bamburgh, rulers of Bamburgh. It was not however only used by rulers of Bamburgh; many other places used the title; e.g. there was an Ordulf "High-Reeve of Dumnonia". The first reference to a ''high-reeve'' was perhaps in the third code of Edmund I of England, where there is an official known as a ''summus praepositus''.Williams, ''Æthelred the Unready'', p. 64 Alfred Smyth thought ''heah-gerefa'' was influenced by the Scottish word ''mormaer'', the meaning of which, supposedly ''great steward'', is possibly similar. In the ''North People's Law'', a high-reeve is given a wergild of four thousand thrymsas, the same as a hold (title), hold and half the wergild of an ealdorman.Seebohm, ''Tribal Custom in Anglo-Saxon Law'', p. 363North People's Law (Halsall)/ref> Ann Williams believes that the High-Reeve ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hold (title)
Hold (or Hauld) was a title of nobility, used in early medieval Scandinavia and the English Danelaw. History Holds were described as "noblemen of exalted rank" in Viking Northumbria by Frank Stenton, with a wergild of 4000 thrymsas, equivalent to a king's high-reeve. Hold is described as a title just below the earl Earl () is a rank of the nobility in the United Kingdom. In modern Britain, an earl is a member of the Peerages in the United Kingdom, peerage, ranking below a marquess and above a viscount. A feminine form of ''earl'' never developed; instead, ... in ''Oxford Dictionary of Surnames''. References {{reflist External links Eystein Eggen 2005 (Norwegian, Aftenposten) Noble titles Norwegian noble titles ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Germanic Society
The Germanic peoples were tribal groups who lived in Northern Europe in Classical antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. In modern scholarship, they typically include not only the Roman-era ''Germani'' who lived in both ''Germania'' and parts of the Roman Empire, but also all Germanic speaking peoples from this era, irrespective of where they lived, most notably the Goths. Another term, ancient Germans, is considered problematic by many scholars since it suggests identity with present-day Germans. Although the first Roman descriptions of ''Germani'' involved tribes west of the Rhine, their homeland of ''Germania'' was portrayed as stretching east of the Rhine, to southern Scandinavia and the Vistula in the east, and to the upper Danube in the south. Other Germanic speakers, such as the Bastarnae and Goths, lived further east in what is now Moldova and Ukraine. The term ''Germani ''is generally only used to refer to historical peoples from the 1st to 4th centuries CE. Different ac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roman Law
Roman law is the law, legal system of ancient Rome, including the legal developments spanning over a thousand years of jurisprudence, from the Twelve Tables (), to the (AD 529) ordered by Eastern Roman emperor Justinian I. Roman law also denoted the legal system applied in most of Western Europe until the end of the 18th century. In Germany, Roman law practice remained in place longer under the Holy Roman Empire (963–1806). Roman law thus served as a basis for Civil law (legal system), legal practice throughout Western continental Europe, as well as in most former colonies of these European nations, including Latin America, and also in Ethiopia. English and Anglo-American common law were influenced also by Roman law, notably in their Latinate legal glossary. Eastern Europe was also influenced by the jurisprudence of the , especially in countries such as medieval Romania, which created a new legal system comprising a mixture of Roman and local law. After the dissolution of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Churl
A churl ( Old High German ), in its earliest Old English (Anglo-Saxon) meaning, was simply "a man" or more particularly a "free man", but the word soon came to mean "a non-servile peasant", still spelled , and denoting the lowest rank of freemen. According to the '' Oxford English Dictionary'', it later came to mean the opposite of nobility and royalty, "a common person". Says Chadwick: This meaning held through the 15th century, but by then the word had taken on negative overtones, meaning "a country person" and then "a low fellow". By the 19th century, a new and pejorative meaning arose, "one inclined to uncivil or loutish behaviour"—hence "churlish" (cf. the pejorative sense of the term ''boor'', whose original meaning of "country person" or "farmer" is preserved in Dutch and Afrikaans and German , although the latter has its own pejorative connotations such as those prompting its use as the name for the chess piece known in English as a pawn; also the word villain ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thegn
In later Anglo-Saxon England, a thegn or thane (Latin minister) was an aristocrat who ranked at the third level in lay society, below the king and ealdormen. He had to be a substantial landowner. Thanage refers to the tenure by which lands were held by a thane as well as the rank; an approximately equivalent modern title may be that of baron. The term ''thane'' was also used in Early Middle Ages, early medieval Scandinavia for a class of retainers, and ''thane (Scotland), thane'' was a title given to local royal officials in medieval eastern Scotland, equivalent in rank to the child of an earl. Etymology ''Thegn'' is only used once in the laws before the reign of King Æthelstan (924–939), but more frequently in charters. Apparently unconnected to the German language, German and Dutch language, Dutch word '' '' ('to serve'), H. M. Chadwick suggests "the sense of subordination must have been inherent... from the earliest time". It gradually expanded in meaning and use, to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ealdorman
Ealdorman ( , ) ''Collins English Dictionary''. was an office in the Government in Anglo-Saxon England, government of Anglo-Saxon England. During the 11th century, it evolved into the title of earl. Early use The Old English word ''ealdorman'' was applied to high-ranking men. It was equated with several Latin titles, including , , , and . The title could be applied to kings of weaker territories who had submitted to a greater power. For example, a Anglo-Saxon charters, charter of King Offa of Mercia described Ealdred of Hwicce as "''Ecgberht, King of Wessex#Subregulus, subregulus''... ''et dux'' ()." In Wessex, the king appointed ealdormen to lead individual shires. Under Alfred the Great (), there were nine or ten ealdormen. Each West Saxon shire had one, and Kent had two (one for East Kent and o ...[...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thrymsa
The thrymsa () was a gold coin minted in seventh-century Anglo-Saxon England. It originated as a copy of Merovingian tremisses and earlier Roman coins with a high gold content. Continued debasement between the 630s and the 650s reduced the gold content in newly minted coins such that after c. 655 the percentage of gold in a new coin was less than 35%. The thrymsa ceased to be minted after about 675 and was superseded by the silver sceat. History The first thrymsas were minted in England in the 630s. These earliest coins were created at mints in Canterbury, London, and perhaps also Winchester. Charles Arnold-Baker in his '' Companion to British History'' suggests that the impetus for the creation of this coin was increased commerce following the marriage of Æthelberht of Kent and Bertha of Kent, a daughter of the Frankish king Charibert I. Thrymsas originally contained between 40% and 70% gold, but following continued debasement those coins minted after c. 655 contained less ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Norðleoda Laga
''Norðleoda laga'' is a set of laws apparently pertaining to the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria Northumbria () was an early medieval Heptarchy, kingdom in what is now Northern England and Scottish Lowlands, South Scotland. The name derives from the Old English meaning "the people or province north of the Humber", as opposed to the Sout .... Mention of a Northumbrian king suggests that the text originates before the mid-tenth century, when Northumbria ceased to be an independent kingdom. The text comprises a list of the wergelds payable on the killing of people of different social statuses, with the following values: Editions and translations * Liebermann, F. (ed.), ''Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen'', 3 vols (Halle a. S.: Niemeyer, 1903–16), I 458–60. * Monk, Chris (ed. and trans.), Norðleoda Laga (‘Laws of the Northumbrians’), Textus Roffensis, ff. 93v-94r' (Rochester: Rochester Cathedral Research Guild, 2018) References Anglo-Saxon law {{law-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire, also known as the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation after 1512, was a polity in Central and Western Europe, usually headed by the Holy Roman Emperor. It developed in the Early Middle Ages, and lasted for a millennium until its Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, dissolution in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars. For most of its history the Empire comprised the entirety of the modern countries of Germany, Czechia, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Slovenia, and Luxembourg, most of north-central Italy, and large parts of modern-day east France and west Poland. On 25 December 800, Pope Leo III crowned the Frankish king Charlemagne Roman emperor, reviving the title more than three centuries after the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476. The title lapsed in 924, but was revived in 962 when Otto I, OttoI was crowned emperor by Pope John XII, as Charlemagne's and the Carolingian Empire's successor. From 962 until the 12th century, the empire ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
