_GENERAL CONCLUSIONS_ 496
INDEX 533
[Illustration]
CHAPTER I.
_THE CURRENCY IN WHICH WERGELDS WERE RECKONED AND PAID._
I. CONNECTION BETWEEN THE WERGELD OF 100 HEAD OF CATTLE AND THE MINA OF
100 GOLD STATERS.
[Sidenote: The currencies in which wergelds were paid.]
The inquiry pursued in this volume partakes so much of the character of
a study of the wergelds of the various tribes of North-western Europe
that it becomes necessary as briefly as possible to call attention at the
outset to the currencies in which they were reckoned and paid.
[Sidenote: Cows.]
The Cymric galanas or death fine was reckoned in cows, and the cows were
equated with silver.
[Sidenote: Female slaves.]
The Irish ‘eric’ of the Brehon laws was stated in _cumhals_ or female
slaves, and lesser payments in cows and heifers, and these were all
equated with silver.
[Sidenote: Silver.]
The Anglo-Saxon wergelds were stated, with perhaps one exception, in
silver scillings.
The wergelds of the Scandinavian tribes were generally stated in their
laws in silver marks, ores, and ortugs, with the equivalent in gold at a
ratio of 1:8, and also in cows.
[Sidenote: Gold solidi.]
Those of the Continental German tribes were generally stated in gold
solidi, but the statements were sometimes supplemented by clauses
describing the value of the animals, whether oxen or cows, in which the
payments were, in practice, still evidently made, at the date of the laws.
[Sidenote: Early equation between cattle and gold.]
Professor Ridgeway[1] has shown that the equation between cattle and gold
may go back a long way into the past of Eastern tradition. The result of
his careful inquiry was the brilliant suggestion that the ox--the most
usual unit of payment in agricultural countries--was very early and very
generally equated in Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, and Greek usage with
the gold stater or didrachma.
[Sidenote: Greek stater the ox-unit.]
The stater was reckoned in Greek usage as of 192 wheat-grains.[2] It was
divided into 6 diobols of 32 wheat-grains. And throughout the East the
usual multiples of the stater were the _light mina_ of 50 staters and the
_heavy mina_ of 100 staters or 19,200 wheat-grains.[3]
Now if the gold stater of 192 wheat-grains is to be recognised as the
ox-unit in traditional equations between cattle and gold, another very
important recognition suggests itself.
[Sidenote: Normal wergelds of 100 head of cattle]
Wergelds being first paid in cattle, it was natural that a round number
of cattle should be chosen, and instances are not wanting in the Eastern
world suggesting that ‘a hundred head of cattle’ was a customary normal
wergeld of wide prevalence.
Among the Arabs to this day Professor Robertson Smith states[4] that the
camel is the unit of payment, and that, in a feud between two Meccan
tribes, the manslayer has the alternative of paying 100 camels or
bringing 50 of his kin to take oath of purgation, or lastly of abiding
the blood-feud.
According to the laws of Manu, if one of the highest of the twice-born
Brahman class slew one of the Warrior class involuntarily, he might
cleanse himself by paying to the Brahmans or priests 1000 cows and a
bull. If he slew one of the agricultural or trading class, the payment
was 100 cows and a bull. If he slew one of the servile class, the payment
was 10 cows and a bull.[5]
In this case 100 cows seem to have been the normal wergeld, and the
wergelds of those of higher or lower caste or rank seem to have been
multiples or fractions of it.
In Homer there are indications of the same thing. Lycaon was sold as
a captive for 100 oxen and redeemed as a chieftain’s son for 300
oxen--being apparently valued at a threefold wergeld on account of his
recognised princely rank.
Iliad, XXI. 39. ‘And at that time he sold him into well-peopled
Lemnos, sending him on shipboard, and the son of Jason gave a
price for him and thence a guest-friend freed him with a great
ransom, Eetion of Imbros, and sent him to goodly Arisbe; whence
flying secretly he came to his father’s house (at Troy). Eleven
days he rejoiced among his friends after he was come from Lemnos,
but on the twelfth once more God brought him into the hands of
Achilles again.’
71. ‘Then Lykaon besought him.… At thy table first I tasted
meal of Demeter on the day when thou didst take me captive in
the well-ordered orchard, and didst sell me away from my father
(Priam) and my friends unto goodly Lemnos, and _I fetched thee
the price of an hundred oxen_. And now I have been ransomed _for
thrice that_, and this is my twelfth morn since I came to Ilios
after much pain.’
[Sidenote: The normal wergeld equated with the gold mina of 100 staters.]
Now if a herd of 100 head of cattle had come to be a common normal
wergeld in the Eastern world, and if the gold stater had come to be
regarded as the ox-unit, it follows that the heavy gold mina of 100
staters would easily come to be adopted as a common equivalent for the
wergeld of 100 head of cattle.
Nor are we without examples which show that this connection of the
wergeld with the gold mina was not altogether foreign to traditional
modes of thought.
In the laws of Gortyn[6] a man whose life was forfeit for crime might be
redeemed by his kindred for 100 staters, _i.e._ the heavy gold mina.
The ransom of prisoners between certain Greek tribes or states according
to Herodotus was two minas, _i.e._ one heavy mina.[7]
There is a curious instance in the Mosaic law of the connection of
something like a wergeld with the mina of silver. In the last chapter of
Leviticus the price to be paid for the redemption of a man dedicated by
a vow to the service of the Sanctuary was 50 shekels of silver: that is,
the light mina of silver.
II. THE SAME EQUATION REPEATED BETWEEN THE WERGELDS OF WESTERN TRIBES AND
200 GOLD SOLIDI OF CONSTANTINE.
[Sidenote: The gold solidus of Constantine a half-stater.]
Following the same thread of suggestion and turning from the Eastern to
the Western world, we pass at a leap from the Eastern gold stater of 192
wheat-grains to the gold solidus of Constantine, of exactly half that
number.
Up to the time of Constantine there had been confusion in the currency of
the Roman Empire. It had been mainly a silver currency. Few gold coins
were in general circulation, and these were of various standards. But at
last the gold solidus of Constantine placed the world in possession of a
fixed gold standard acknowledged all over Europe and remaining unchanged
till the fall of the Eastern Empire.
The importance of this fact is obvious. For our knowledge of most of the
wergelds of the tribes conquered by the Merovingian Franks and later
on by Charlemagne is dependent upon it, inasmuch as the laws in which
the customs of these tribes were in some sense codified, almost always
describe the wergelds in gold solidi.
The gold solidus of Constantine was fixed by him at 1/72 of the Roman
pound or ⅙ of the Roman ounce.
The Roman pound (originally used for copper) was built up from the
scripulum according to the duodecimal system of the _As_, thus:
Scripulum 24 wheat-grains = 1·135 grammes
Uncia (of 24) 576 ” = 27·25 ”
Libra (of 288) 6912 ” = 327· ”
[Sidenote: Gold tremisses of 32 wheat-grains.]
The solidus of Constantine therefore contained 96 wheat-grains of gold,
exactly the same number as the Eastern drachma, and half that of the
stater or didrachma. At the same time smaller coins--thirds of the
solidus, called _trientes_ or _tremisses_--were issued in great numbers,
and these tremisses contained 32 wheat-grains of gold, exactly the same
number as the Greek _diobol_.
[Sidenote: The normal wergeld of 200 gold solidi = gold mina.]
So that, in wheat-grains, the very prevalent statement of the wergeld
of the full freeman in the laws of various tribes as 200 gold solidi
was in fact the same thing as a statement that the wergeld was a _heavy
gold mina_, for 200 solidi of 96 wheat-grains contained exactly the
same number of wheat-grains as did the heavy mina of ancient Eastern
usage--viz. 19,200. In other words, so persistent seems to have been the
traditional connection of the wergeld with the gold _mina_ that Roman
monetary usage was overruled, and instead of reckoning in Roman drachmas,
ounces, and pounds, the wergelds were reckoned once more, or perhaps we
should say continued to be reckoned, in what was really the heavy gold
_mina_ of 200 solidi.
[Sidenote: And was often the equivalent of 100 oxen.]
Further than this, in the laws of some of the tribes, as we shall find,
the double solidus or stater still retained its position as the gold
equivalent of the ox, so that the typical wergeld of 200 gold solidi in
these cases was actually, like the _mina_, the gold equivalent of 100
oxen.
Even where variations are found from this prevalent equation we shall
still sometimes find the principle preserved, some other animal being
substituted for the ox, and sometimes the long hundred of 120 being
substituted for the decimal hundred.
[Sidenote: The standard weight of the wheat-grain varied.]
If this had been the whole truth the matter would be simple. But the
fact is that, although the wergeld of 200 solidi of Constantine was the
exact equivalent of the heavy gold mina reckoned in _wheat-grains_, there
were differences in the standard weight of the wheat-grain. As already
mentioned, the actual weights of Eastern and Greek staters were not
exactly alike, and the Roman standard, in actual weight, was higher than
the Eastern and Greek standards.
The latest authorities, Hultsch and Lehmann,[8] on the evidence of
inscribed weights, describe what may for convenience be called the
Eastern gold mina--_i.e._ the _heavy_ gold mina of Assyrian and
Babylonian metrology--as weighing 818 grammes, or 100 staters of 8·18
grammes. They tell us also that there was a _commercial_ mina of 120 of
the same staters. This commercial mina therefore weighed 982 grammes,
and metrologists have inferred that the Roman pound was derived from
this commercial mina being in fact exactly one third of its weight, or
327 grammes.
Now, as the commercial mina contained 120 staters of 8·18 grammes, it is
obvious that the Roman pound, being one third of it, ought to have been
divided, had Eastern reckoning been followed, not, as Constantine divided
it, into 36 staters of 9·08 grammes, but rather into 40 staters of 8·18
grammes.
In other words, had Constantine, instead of following the Roman system of
division, followed the Eastern system and divided the Roman pound into 40
staters of 8·18 grammes in weight, his double solidus, whilst containing
192 Eastern wheat-grains, would have contained only 172·8 Roman
wheat-grains. As a matter of fact the Eastern stater of 8·18 grammes, if
put in the Roman scales of Constantine, would have weighed only 172·8
wheat-grains of Roman standard, and the tremisses 28·8 wheat-grains. The
Roman pound would have contained 240 of such tremisses, and the ounce 20
of them.
[Sidenote: The Roman lb. divided into 240 smaller tremisses of 28·8
wheat-grains.]
This is not the place to enter more deeply into the metrological
question, but its interest in this inquiry lies in the fact that in
Western Europe, in spite of Roman conquests and Roman influence, and in
spite of the general knowledge and prevalence of the gold solidi and
tremisses of the Empire, there seems to have been a remarkable tendency,
consciously or unconsciously, to revert to the Eastern standard by
dividing the Roman pound into 40 staters, 80 solidi, and 240 tremisses.
The ancient Gallic gold coinage, extending from the valley of the Danube
across Gaul into Britain, was apparently of this ancient Eastern
standard. And Cæsar himself, after his conquest of Gaul, reverted to
it when he issued gold staters of one fortieth of the Roman pound.[9]
Finally we shall find, in our next section, the Merovingian Franks,
consciously or unconsciously, doing the same.
III. THE FRANKISH CURRENCY.
[Sidenote: The early currency of the Franks mostly gold.]
Most of the laws of the Continental tribes seem to have had their origin
in the necessity to commit into writing what remained of local custom
after Frankish conquest.
Broadly speaking they belong to two periods--the earlier one that of
the conquests of the Merovingian Franks, and the later one that of the
conquests of Charlemagne.
It becomes necessary, therefore, to distinguish between the coinage and
currency of the two periods.[10]
When we turn from the Imperial currency of gold solidi and tremisses to
that of the Frankish princes, we find them using a peculiar system of
monetary reckoning, founded upon the metrical system already alluded to,
of 20 tremisses or pence to the ounce and 240 to the pound.
[Sidenote: At first of Roman solidi and tremisses; afterwards of the
smaller tremisses of 28·8 wheat-grains; then of silver tremisses or pence
of the same weight.]
At first the Merovingian kings seem to have used or copied the Imperial
solidi and tremisses. But before long they issued an abundant gold
currency of their own, consisting almost entirely of tremisses. And
these tremisses were reduced in weight by the division of the Roman pound
of 6912 wheat-grains into 240 tremisses of 1/20 of the ounce, _i.e._ 28·8
instead of 32 wheat-grains. The abundant currency of these lighter gold
tremisses continued till nearly the close of the Merovingian period. And
how abundant this gold currency was, is shown by the fact that nearly
10,000 examples are recorded in the catalogues of Merovingian coins in
public and private collections.
But towards the close of the Merovingian period came one of those strange
monetary changes, so difficult to account for, which before long put an
end altogether to the issue of these gold tremisses.
All through the Merovingian period payments had no doubt been made in
silver as well as in gold, by weight, and during the later part of the
period silver tremisses were issued of the same weight as the gold. And
thus gradually, at first concurrently with the gold tremisses and at last
driving them out, came into use a silver currency of 20 pence to the
ounce and 240 to the Roman pound.
With this silver currency and the following of this weight system came
in apparently the method of silver monetary reckoning, so familiar to
us, of dividing the pound of 240 pence into 20 solidi or shillings of 12
pence--the pound being still the Roman pound of 6912 wheat-grains. This
silver solidus was, however, only one of account and was never issued as
a coin.
[Sidenote: The _nova moneta_ of Charlemagne.]
Finally, just before Charlemagne assumed the title of Emperor another
change was made by the issue of his _nova moneta_.
[Sidenote: His pound of 240 silver tremisses of 32 wheat-grains, and
silver solidus of account of 12 pence.]
The silver currency had by this time become predominant, and in the
capitularies the silver solidus of 12 pence had already come into
use. Charlemagne, in issuing the _nova moneta_, made no alteration
in the method of reckoning, except that he brought the weight of the
silver tremissis or penny back again to the Imperial standard of 32
wheat-grains, thus making his pound of 240 of the new pence 7680
wheat-grains instead of 6912 and the ounce 640 instead of 576.
At the same time we shall find that he tried, by making his _nova moneta_
legal tender, to force the new silver solidus of 12 pence into use as
equivalent, in payments, for the gold solidus of three gold tremisses,
which up to that time had been the solidus of the Salic laws.
[Sidenote: Made legal tender at a ratio of 1:4 with gold.]
This involved the altogether impossible ratio of 1:4 between the two
metals instead of the Imperial ratio of 1:12.
In considering the wergelds of the laws belonging to this period, we
shall find plenty of evidence of the confusion resulting from this
remarkable experiment, made more apparent by the fact that the ratio of
1:12 was restored by one of Charlemagne’s successors.
It has been necessary to trouble the reader with this brief statement of
somewhat complicated facts, because it would be impossible to understand
the wergelds of the various Continental tribes if they were not borne in
mind.
For the understanding of these wergelds the points to be considered will
be:--
(1) As regards the laws, the recensions of which date from Merovingian
times, it will be necessary to ask whether the solidi and tremisses were
of Imperial or of Merovingian standard.
(2) As regards the later laws, the recensions of which date from the
conquests of Charlemagne, we shall have to consider whether the wergelds
are stated in gold solidi and tremisses, or in the silver solidi and
pence of the _nova moneta_ of Charlemagne.
IV. THE NORMAN AND ANGLO-SAXON CURRENCY.
Working back from the known to the unknown, the facts relating to the
Norman and Anglo-Saxon currency, speaking generally, confirm what has
already been said of the Frankish currency, and become intelligible when
the two currencies are considered together.
[Sidenote: The Norman and later Anglo-Saxon pound of 240 pence of 32
wheat-grains.]
In the first place, the Norman and Anglo-Saxon pound at the time of
the Norman conquest was the pound of 7680 wheat-grains of silver or
240 silver pence of 32 wheat-grains, like that of the _nova moneta_ of
Charlemagne, and the Normans, like the Franks, divided it for monetary
purposes into 20 shillings of 12 pence.
At the same time the Normans recognised that the Mercians had all along
reckoned in silver scillings of 4 pence, and the men of Wessex in
scillings of 5 pence.
[Sidenote: The earlier pound of 240 sceatts or silver tremisses of 28·8
wheat-grains.]
If we examine the actual coinage of the Anglo-Saxons we find that, like
that of the Franks, it may be divided into two periods. The earlier one
corresponded to the Merovingian period during which the penny or sceatt
of Mercia and Wessex was of 28·8 wheat-grains, like the silver tremisses
or pence across the Channel.[11] The later period commenced when Offa in
Mercia, followed by Alfred in Wessex, abandoned the ‘sceatt’ and issued
pence like those of the _nova moneta_ of Charlemagne of 32 wheat-grains.
So marked is the distinction between the silver pence of the two periods
in type and weight that they are known by numismatists as the ‘Sceatt
series’ and the ‘Penny series.’
Finally, just as, in the case of the Frankish currency, the pound of 240
sceatts was the Roman pound of 6912 wheat-grains, so the pound of 240 of
the later pence was the pound of the _nova moneta_ of 7680 wheat-grains,
which in England after the Conquest became the standard or Tower pound.
At the same time it must be remembered that the identity or difference in
these cases is in the reckoning in wheat-grains, and that there was room
for some variation in the actual weight of the coins.
V. THE MINAS WHICH SURVIVED IN USE SIDE BY SIDE WITH THE ROMAN POUND.
According to the writers of the Merovingian and later period collected by
Hultsch,[12] the Roman pound was not the only standard of weight which
was in customary use in Europe.
[Sidenote: The gold mina of 200 gold solidi.]
We have seen that the commonly prevalent wergeld of 200 gold solidi was
in fact the same thing, in wheat-grains, as the heavy Eastern and Greek
gold mina of 19,200 wheat-grains. But besides this, there were two other
minas of interest to this inquiry which seem to have been more or less
locally in use, and more or less connected with the wergelds.
[Sidenote: The _mina Italica_ of 240 scripula of 24 wheat-grains or 20
Roman ounces.]
It seems that the Roman pound of 12 ounces was not the only pound in
use in Italy. A still older Roman pound of 10 Roman ounces or 5760
wheat-grains seems to have existed,[13] which was in fact a pound of
240 scripula of 24 wheat-grains. And two of these pounds made what was
called the _mina Italica_ of 20 Roman ounces. This mina Italica survived
into Merovingian times. It contained 480 Roman scripula, and according
to authorities quoted by Hultsch[14] the _scripulum_ was so far a common
unit in Gaul as to have earned the name of the _denarius Gallicus_. The
number of Roman wheat-grains in the mina Italica was 11,520. Its weight
was 545 grammes.
In the Merovingian formulæ and in the early charters of St. Gall there
are constant references to fines of so many _libræ_ of gold and so many
_pondera_ of silver, from which the inference may be drawn that the
pondus of silver was a different weight from the libra of gold. Whether
the older Roman pound or half-mina-Italica was the ‘pondus’ or not,
the fact that it consisted of 240 scripula may possibly have made it a
precedent for the monetary mode of reckoning of 240 pence to the pound,
adopted by the Franks and Anglo-Saxons.
This mina Italica has also a Celtic interest. It is curious to note that
whilst so late as the tenth century the Cymric galanas or wergeld was
paid in cows, the cow was equated with a monetary reckoning in scores of
pence, or _unciæ argenti_, of which twelve made a pound of 240 pence. At
the same time in the Cymric Codes there are mentioned, as we shall find,
two kinds of pence: the _legal_ pence, probably those current at the time
in England of 32 w.g., and the _curt_ pence or scripula of one third
less, viz. 24 w.g. Now, whilst 240 of the former would equal the pound
of the _nova moneta_ of Charlemagne, and of later Anglo-Saxon reckoning,
240 of the _curt_ pence or scripula would equal the older Roman pound or
half-mina-Italica.
Turning from the Cymric monetary system to that of the early Irish
manuscripts and Brehon laws, we shall find that it was based on the
Roman scripulum of 24 wheat-grains, and not, like the Anglo-Saxon and
Frankish system, on the tremissis. And we shall find that though thus
based upon the scripulum and the ounce, when payments were made in gold
and silver, the reckoning, instead of making use of the Roman or any
other pound, counted rather in _scores of ounces_; _i.e._ consciously or
unconsciously, in so many of the mina Italica.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: The _mina Attica_ of 16 Roman ounces or 2 marks.]
So much for the _mina Italica_ and its possible Anglo-Saxon and Celtic
connections.
The other mina, the mention of which is important, formed the probable
basis of Scandinavian reckoning in _marks_ instead of in pounds.
The authorities collected by Hultsch describe this mina as of 16 Roman
ounces, and as the ‘_mina Attica_.’[15] It is a fact that 16 Roman ounces
did exactly equal in weight (though not in wheat-grains) the light mina
of 50 Attic staters or 100 drachmas. But under Roman influence this
Attic mina no longer was divided like a mina into 100 drachmas, but had
become twisted, as it were, into 16 Roman ounces and into 96 solidi of
Constantine.
[Sidenote: The mark, ore, and ortug of Scandinavia.]
In Northern Europe, in nearly all the systems of reckoning which survived
from mediæval times, the pound of 12 ounces was ignored. A pound of 16
ounces had taken its place. And this pound or mina of 16 ounces lay, as
we shall find, at the root of the system of the earliest Scandinavian
laws, with its monetary marks, ores, and ortugs, for it was the double of
the _mark_ of 8 ounces. The Russian zolotnic (or ‘gold piece’), on which
the weight system of Russia is based, was theoretically identical in
wheat-grains with the Roman solidus, and the Scandinavian ortug with the
double solidus or stater.
It is not needful to dwell further upon these points at this moment; but
it will become important to recognise the Byzantine or Eastern origin
of the mina of 16 Roman ounces when we come to consider the wergelds of
Northern Europe, and particularly the equation between the Danish wergeld
of 8 half-marks of gold and the silver wergelds of Wessex and Mercia as
described in the compact between Alfred and Guthrum.
In that compact we shall have to recognise not only the contact of two
methods of monetary reckoning widely separated in origin, the one of gold
and the other of silver, but also the clashing of two traditional ratios
between the two metals, viz. the Scandinavian ratio of 1:8, and the
restored Imperial ratio of 1:12 followed by the Anglo-Saxons.
VI. THE USE OF GOLD TORQUES AND ARMLETS, &C., INSTEAD OF COINS.
[Sidenote: Wergelds paid in cattle or gold or silver by weight.]
Although the amounts of the wergelds are generally stated in the laws in
gold or silver currency, more or less directly equated with the cattle in
which they were originally paid, it would be a great mistake to imagine
that the wergelds were often paid actually in coin.
A moment’s consideration makes it clear that a wergeld of a hundred head
of cattle, whether paid as of old in cattle or in gold or silver, was a
payment too large to be paid in _coin_. It was a payment that no ordinary
individual could pay without the aid of his kindred, and it is hardly
likely that so large an amount in actual coin could be collected even
from the kindred of the murderer.
[Sidenote: Gold torques &c. made of a certain weight and used in
payments.]
There is plenty of evidence to show that large payments in gold
and silver were mostly made by weight, and very often in gold
articles--torques, armlets, and bracelets--made to a certain weight.
In the Scald’s tale is the well-known passage:--
He to me a beag gave
On which six hundred was
Of beaten gold
Scored of sceatts
In scillings reckoned.
Whether the true meaning be six hundred sceatts or six hundred
scillings, we have here a beag with its weight marked upon it.
The museums of Scandinavia and of Ireland--the two poles of German and
Celtic culture--are full of these gold objects, and very frequently
little coils of fine gold wire are wound round them to raise their weight
to the required standard.
[Sidenote: Gold and silver objects weighing so many mancuses.]
It may be mentioned, further, in passing, that in many early Anglo-Saxon
charters payments and donations are made in gold and silver objects, and
that the weights of these are sometimes stated in so many _mancuses_--the
mancus being apparently a weight of gold or silver of 30 pence, and
equated in the later laws, in its silver value, with the value of the
ox.[16]
[Sidenote: An historical example.]
It may be worth while before concluding this chapter to refer to an
historic example of the use of gold objects of definite weight, and the
adjustment of their value in differing currencies. The incident deserves
to be noticed, and may be of use in helping to fix upon the memory
the difference, so often alluded to, between the Roman pound of 6912
wheat-grains and Charlemagne’s pound of 7680 wheat-grains. It belongs to
the precise moment when Charlemagne, having issued his _nova moneta_, was
contemplating his visit to Rome and the assumption of the Imperial title,
and it has an historical interest as showing that the _nova moneta_ was
issued before the Imperial title was assumed.
Alcuin, who had long resided at the Court of Charlemagne, was now lying
ill at Tours. In order to consult him, probably respecting the Imperial
title, Charlemagne, with his queen Liutgarda, proceeded to visit him at
Tours. Liutgarda was apparently taken ill while there, and died June 4
A.D. 800.
[Sidenote: Alcuin weighs gold bracelets in the scales of the _nova
moneta_.]
During her illness Alcuin sent a messenger to Paulinus, the Patriarch of
Aquileia, with two _armillæ_ of fine gold from Liutgarda,[17] so that he
and his priests might pray for her. He stated in his letter to Paulinus
that these armillæ weighed ‘xxiv. denarii less than a full pound of the
_nova moneta_ of the king.’
Alcuin thus weighed the bracelets in the scales of the _nova moneta_,
and they weighed twenty-four pence less than Charlemagne’s pound of 7680
wheat-grains. The interesting point is that 24 pence of the _nova moneta_
(24 × 32 = 768) deducted from the pound of Charlemagne left exactly 6912
wheat-grains. So that when Paulinus weighed the gold bracelets in his
Roman scales he would find they weighed exactly a Roman pound.[18]
[Sidenote: But in correspondence with Ireland uses Roman weights.]
And yet, though writing from Charlemagne’s Court, Alcuin, when addressing
his ecclesiastical friends in Ireland, no longer used the terms of the
Frankish currency. It was after all a local one. Charlemagne’s Empire
had its limits, and Ireland was beyond them. The area of ecclesiastical
rule was wider than both Empires put together. Alcuin writes that he and
his Imperial master had distributed among the Irish monasteries so many
_sicli_ of silver. The _siclus_, according to the authorities collected
by Hultsch,[19] was equal to two Roman _argentei_ or drachmas of silver.
So that Alcuin used the di-drachma or stater of Roman reckoning as fixed
in the time of Nero, when corresponding with churches outside the Empire
of his Frankish master.
[Sidenote: Archbishop Egbert also uses Roman weights instead of local
ones.]
As we proceed in our inquiries we shall find another great ecclesiastic
(Egbert, archbishop of York and brother of the Northumbrian king) using
the same Roman monetary terms in replying to the question of his clergy
respecting the wergelds to be claimed in taking their proper position
and rank in the Northumbrian kingdom. The answer was given in Roman
_argentei_ and _sicli_, and not in Frankish solidi, or Anglo-Saxon
scillings, or any other local currency.
In conclusion, the various currencies in which wergelds were paid may at
first sight be perplexing, but the relevance of the facts stated in this
chapter to a right understanding of the wergelds of various tribes under
tribal custom, and of the amount of the wergelds to a right understanding
of the constitution of tribal society, will become more and more apparent
as the inquiry proceeds.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER II.
_SUMMARY OF THE CYMRIC EVIDENCE._
I. THE UNIT OF CYMRIC TRIBAL SOCIETY.
The next step in this inquiry will be to give a brief summary of the
results of the evidence contained in the volume on the ‘Tribal System in
Wales,’ adding at the same time such further details as may be useful in
helping us to realise the methods by which tribal custom worked itself
out in practice.[20]
[Sidenote: The Cymric unit of landholding was the gwely.]
The chief fact revealed by the examination of the Extents and Surveys
of different parts of Wales made after the English conquest, taken
together with the Cymric Codes, was that the unit of society and of
land-occupation under Cymric tribal custom was not the individual, and
not the immediate family, but the group of kindred known as the ‘_Wele_’
or ‘_Gwely_.’
Such and such a Villata or District is described in the surveys as in
the occupation of the gwelys of so and so, the Latin word used for gwely
being ‘lectus’ or bed.
[Sidenote: The gwely was a family group of a great-grandfather and his
descendants.]
The form of society thus revealed was _patriarchal_ in the sense that
the common ancestor (generally conceived to be the great-grandfather)
during his life, and even after his death, was regarded as the head of
the _gwely_ or group of his descendants for three generations. In his
name as its head this family group occupied land and had grazing rights
over certain districts, sometimes alone, more often in common with other
family groups.
As to what is meant by land ownership in the full modern sense, the
question may not have arisen, or it might have come in gradually sooner
or later, as agriculture came more and more into prominence. What
property, strictly speaking, the tribesmen owned consisted mainly of
herds of cattle.
Naturally, therefore, what rights over land they may have had were mainly
rights of occupation and grazing in certain districts for their herds.
Their agriculture was secondary, and consisted of the right to plough up
such portions of the waste or common pasture as year by year might be
required for their corn crop. All that need be said at this moment about
their agriculture is that it was an open field husbandry, the result of
the co-ploughing of a common plough-team normally of 8 oxen, the joint
contribution of several tribesmen.
[Sidenote: The young tribesman is dependent on the chief, not on his
father. The tribesmen recover their _da_ or cattle from him as their
chief for their maintenance.]
Returning to the gwely, we find that when a child was born into it,
whether boy or girl, it was formally acknowledged by the kindred. It
remained ‘at the father’s platter’ to a certain age (generally 14), and
then the father ceased to be responsible. The boy at 14 became the ‘man
and kin’ of the chieftain of the family group, or it might be of the
higher kindred embracing several of the gwelys. From that moment the
boy obtained by ‘kin and descent’ a tribesman’s right of maintenance.
That is to say, he received from the chieftain his _da_, probably in
the form of an allotment of cattle,[21] and with it the right to join
in the co-ploughing of the waste. He became thus a tribesman on his own
hook, apart from his father. So that the unit of society was not simply
the family in the modern sense of a parent and his children, but the
wider kindred of the gwely or the group of related gwelys headed by the
chieftain who provided the _da_.
II. THE CONSTITUTION AND WORKING OF THE GWELY.
Now, as the gwely was the unit of land-occupation, it is worth while to
try to realise a little further what it was and how it worked.
[Sidenote: The simplest form of the gwely. The landed rights vested in
the chief, and he gives cattle out of the common herd to tribesmen for
their maintenance.]
Viewed in its simplest, and perhaps original form, it was a family
group of four generations, the landed rights of which were vested in the
great-grandfather as its chieftain.
The tribesmen, his descendants, had only rights of maintenance. By right
of ‘kin and descent’ they had received their _da_ from the chieftain. The
flocks and herds of the chieftain were the common stock out of which the
_da_ had been given, and there is reason to believe that under earlier
custom, on the death of a tribesman, his _da_ went back into the common
stock of the chieftain.
[Sidenote: Probably at first no succession by representation on a
tribesman’s death. But in the codes a _peculium_ admitted which went to
children.]
At the date of the codes it did so when the tribesman died _without
issue_. But in the codes a _peculium_ of private property of which the
_da_ was the kernel is recognised and allowed to descend to a tribesman’s
children instead of falling into the common stock.
[Sidenote: A redivision takes place _per capita_ as each generation dies
off.]
When the great-grandfather died, the chieftainship, with the landed
rights and the herds, was divided between his sons, who as brothers thus
became chiefs of sub-gwelys. But the original gwely did not then break
up, because there would be a right of division _per capita_ when the
brothers were dead between first cousins, and when the first cousins were
dead between second cousins.
The division between brothers was probably originally made only between
those sons of the parent who were living at his death. Like the sons of
the surviving brothers, the sons of a deceased brother must be content
with their _da_ till all the brothers were dead, and in the division
between first cousins they would take their share _per capita_ along with
the rest.
But at the time of the codes, by what Continental examples lead us
to regard as an innovation, the orphaned nephews were allowed in the
division to succeed at once, side by side with their uncles, to the share
and position which their father would have taken had he survived.
[Sidenote: The rights and property of a tribesman dying without issue
fall into the common stock.]
Even after this innovation, if a brother had died _without issue_, his
brothers as brothers did not at once succeed as co-heirs. The share
fell into the common stock till a division, and then went to all the
co-inheritors _per capita_, so that cousins, and it might be even second
cousins, took their shares in it.
The introduction of succession by representation to a deceased father’s
property and privilege was, as we shall see in Continental cases, a step
taken in the direction of individual ownership. It complicated the matter
of the division or devolution of the chieftainship in the gwely, but it
is a point of interest in connection with the Continental evidence.
A clear understanding of the constitution and working of the gwely, as a
typical family group, is so important to this inquiry that it is worth
while to place before the reader the passages in codes upon which, taken
together with the surveys, the foregoing description of it rests.
[Sidenote: Clauses in the Venedotian Code.]
The following is the clause in the Venedotian Code describing what took
place in the gwely, under the heading ‘The Law of Brothers for Land:’
Thus, brothers are to share land between them: four erws to every
tyddyn [homestead]. Bleddyn, son of Cynvyn, altered it to twelve
erws to the uchelwr, and eight to the aillt, and four to the
godaeog; yet, nevertheless, it is most usual that four erws be in
the tyddyn.…
If there be no buildings on the land, the youngest son is to
divide all the patrimony (trew y tat), and the eldest is to
choose, and each in seniority choose unto the youngest.
If there be buildings the youngest brother but one is to divide
the tyddyns, for in that case he is the meter; and the youngest
to have his choice of the tyddyns; and after that he is to divide
all the patrimony; and by seniority they are to choose unto the
youngest; and that division is to continue during the lives of
the brothers.
And after the brothers are dead, the first cousins are to
equalise if they will it; and thus they are to do: the heir of
the youngest brother is to equalise, and the heir of the eldest
brother is to choose, and so by seniority unto the youngest; and
that distribution is to continue between them during their lives.
And if second cousins should dislike the distribution which took
place between their parents, they also may co-equate in the same
manner as the first cousins; and after that division no one is
either to distribute or to co-equate. Tir gwelyauc is to be
treated as we have above stated.[22]
[Sidenote: Clauses in the Dimetian Code.]
In the Dimetian Code the same rules of division are stated as follows:
When brothers share their patrimony (tref-eu-tat) between them,
the youngest is to have the principal tyddyn, and all the
buildings of his father, and eight erws of land, his boiler, his
fuel hatchet, and his coulter, because a father cannot give those
three to any but the youngest son, and though they should be
pledged they never become forfeited. Then let every brother take
a homestead (eissydyn) with eight erws of land, and the youngest
son is to share, and they are to choose in succession from the
eldest to the youngest.
Three times shall the same patrimony be shared between three
grades of a kindred, first between brothers, the second time
between cousins, the third time between second cousins, after
that there is no propriate share of land.[23]
* * * * *
After there shall have been a sharing of land acquiesced in by
co-inheritors, no one of them has a claim on the share of the
other, he having issue, except for a sub-share _when the time for
that shall arrive_. Yet whosoever shall not have any issue of his
body, _his co-inheritors, within the three degrees of kin from
the stock, are to be his heirs_.[24]
Only by adhering very closely to these texts can the gwely be understood.
They seem at first sight to refer to the tyddyns or homesteads, but, as
we have seen, the landed rights of grazing in the villatæ in which the
gwelys were located were included also.
[Sidenote: How the divisions worked out in practice.]
It would obviously be a fair critical question to ask, what happened when
the second cousins at last broke up the gwely of their grandfather and
divided the land, or let us say the homesteads and the tribal rights of
grazing on the land, for the last time equally _per capita_? There might
be twenty or thirty of such second cousins. Did the original gwely split
up into twenty or thirty new gwelys? Let us try to realise what happened
by carefully following the text, in the light of the Denbigh Survey.
Let us take a hypothetical case in which the gwely of X is described by
the surveyor as holding an undivided share of the rights of pasture,
&c., in a particular villata or in several villatæ; and assume that,
according to the record, the internal divisions of the gwely followed the
family division of the descendants of X, as in the following table. Then,
applying the rules of the clauses as to _tir gwelyauc_, let us see how it
would work out in the hypothetical case stated.
X, Great-Grandfather _deceased_
|
+--------------+---------------+
| |
Son A Son B
| |
+------+------+ +-----------+--------+
| | | | |
Grandson Aᵃ Aᵇ Bᵃ Bᵇ Bᶜ
| | | | |
| +---+---+ +--+--+ +---+---+ |
G. Grandson | | | | | | | |
Aᵃᵃ Aᵇᵃ Aᵇᵇ Bᵃᵃ Bᵃᵇ Bᵇᵃ Bᵇᵇ Bᵇᶜ Bᶜᵃ
Now let us suppose that X (the great-grandfather, from whom the gwely is
called the gwely of X) is dead. While his sons A and B are alive they
share equally in the grazing and other rights. When A is dead and so long
as B is alive no change is made except that A’s two sons share equally
their father’s right to which, in the phrase of the codes, they have
‘ascended.’ B at length dies. There are five grandsons, first cousins,
who have a right to share in the rights of the gwely of X _per capita_.
There is now therefore a rearrangement after which A’s sons share and
hold jointly only 2-5ths, while B’s three sons hold jointly 3-5ths.
Equality _per capita_ among grandsons has now been effected. But the
gwely goes on. It cannot be broken up because in another generation the
great-grandsons may require a fresh division.
[Sidenote: The process is a continuous one.]
Next let us see what happens when all the grandsons are dead and the
final division _per capita_ takes place. There are nine great-grandsons.
Is the gwely of X now to be divided into nine new gwelys? Certainly not.
The grandsons of A are entitled to 3-9ths only, and this they divide
_per capita_, being first cousins; one family takes 1-3rd and the other
2-3rds. The portion which has fallen to them of family rights in the
gwely of X has become a separate gwely, called either the gwely of A or,
as we sometimes find in the Denbigh Survey, the ‘gwely of the grandsons
of A’--‘_gwely weiryon A_.’ The other portion has become either the gwely
of B or the gwely of the grandsons of B--‘_gwely weiryon B_.’
The grandsons of B, being first cousins, have of course redivided their
6/9ths equally _per capita_, and the internal rights of the gwely of the
grandsons of B are
Bᵃ’s two children have 2/6ths. }
Bᵇ’s three children have 3/6ths. } of 6/9ths.
Bᶜ’s one son has 1/6th. }
They cannot break up the gwely of ‘the grandsons of B’ because they are
not second cousins. But when all of them are dead, their children will be
second cousins and may do so, and then three new gwelys will be formed in
the same way as above, and so on for ever. The process is continuous and
always within the same rules of ‘tir gwelyauc.’
This seems to be the state of things as regards succession within the
gwely resulting from the rules laid down in the Codes and found at work
by the surveyors of the Lordship of the Honour of Denbigh. But we must
remember that, apart from these rights of succession, each tribesman on
becoming a tribesman had been the recipient of his _da_, and so had had
cattle of his own all along in the common herd.
[Sidenote: The rights of females in the gwely.]
Finally, the position of females in the gwely should not pass without
recognition. They are not mentioned in the statements of landed rights
because, provision having been made for their maintenance independently
of their father, they were assumed, whilst claiming their ‘gwaddol’ or
portion, to take this with them, on marriage, out of the gwely. They
ought to be married into another gwely, within which their sons in due
course would receive inheritance and landed rights by paternity. Only
on failure of this could their sons claim landed rights by maternity in
their mother’s original gwely.[25]
III. THE LIABILITY OF THE WIDER KINDRED FOR _GALANAS_ IN CASE OF HOMICIDE.
Such being the _gwely_, we pass on to the wider kindred, embracing the
descendants of seven (and for some purposes nine) generations from a
common ancestor.
[Sidenote: The galanas in lieu of blood feud between kindreds for
homicide, but none within the kindred.]
We find from the Cymric Codes that the members of the wider kindred
had common responsibilities in case of a homicide causing a blood feud
between kindreds. A murder _within_ this wider kindred was regarded as
a family matter. The murderer was too near of blood to be slain. No
atonement could be made for so unnatural a crime. There was no blood
fine or ‘galanas’ within the kindred. The murderer must be exiled. But
a murder of a member of one kindred by the member of another, inasmuch
as, if unatoned for, it would under tribal custom have produced a blood
feud between the two kindreds, was the proper subject for the substituted
payment of the blood fine or ‘galanas.’ The galanas was thus a payment
from one kindred to another in lieu of the blood feud. But its amount
was divided in payment on one side and in distribution on the other, in
varying proportion according to nearness of relationship to the murderer
or the murdered person as the case might be. And in these payments and
receipts all the individual tribesmen within the kindred who had received
their _da_ must take their share if needful.
[Sidenote: Payment and receipt by maternal as well as by paternal
relations.]
The question who had to pay and who had to receive was moreover
complicated further by the fact that it involved maternal relations
as well as paternal relations. It has been very properly pointed out
that, however it might be as regards money payments, it is difficult to
conceive how the liability of maternal relations could be worked in the
case of actual blood feud and fighting. A man might have to fight for
his maternal relations against his paternal relations, or the reverse.
In such a case what must he do? How should he act? He might be in an
impossible position.
Light upon this point and others may be obtained, perhaps, when the
evidence of ‘Beowulf’ is analysed. This evidence will show that a man
may have good cause under tribal custom not to join in some feuds. And
further it will remind us that feuds often arose in contravention of
tribal usage, breaking the peace which in theory the link of marriage
ought to have secured.
In the meantime it would seem possible that the custom of a tribe might,
for anything we know, forbid marriage _within_ the near relationships of
the gwely, and _beyond_ the limits of the wider kindred. In such a case,
paternal and maternal relations might all be within the kindred, so that
properly speaking a quarrel between them could not become the subject of
a feud.
[Sidenote: Marriage a link between two gwelys. But as regards galanas the
wife remained in her own kindred.]
In such matters it is obvious that a good deal must depend upon the view
taken of marriage itself at the particular stage of evolution in which
the society might be. And it may as well be said at once that we should
be quite wrong were we to regard marriage from the Roman point of view,
_i.e._ as a transfer of the woman out of the _potestas_ of her parents
into the _potestas_ of the husband. The Cymric example, to begin with,
was quite different. The marriage of sisters to tribesmen from whom their
sons could inherit tribal rights was a duty cast upon the kinsmen of the
gwely.[26] It was thus an arrangement between two gwelys--a link between
them--but no transfer. If a wife were slain, her galanas or death fine
did not go to the husband and his family; it went to her kindred.[27]
If a wife should commit murder, it was the wife’s family and not the
husband’s on which rested the payment of galanas for her crime.[28] If
the husband were killed the wife took one third of the saraad or fine
for insult and wounding, but she took no part of the galanas of her
husband.[29]
These points are in a sense unexpected. They belong to a stage of social
life as far removed from Roman rules, or modern ones, as they are from
the stage in which a wife was either purchased outright or stolen. And
yet we shall find them in principle more or less clearly repeated in the
varying customs of some of the tribes whose laws we are about to examine.
IV. THE FISCAL UNIT FOR THE PURPOSE OF FOOD-RENTS TO THE CHIEFTAINS.
[Sidenote: The geographical unit for food rents.]
The structure of tribal society in Wales is one thing. The practical
working of its rules is another. Until we can to some extent realise its
methods and see how its results could be worked out in everyday life, it
must remain to some extent vague and mysterious. The nearer we get to its
core, the greater its value as an instrument in further research.
We cannot, therefore, afford to disregard any hints that the Codes and
surveys may give us, attention to which would help us to realise its
methods or ways of working.
[Sidenote: Districts called _villatæ_.]
The Denbigh Extent, as already said, enables us to realise that, on
the English conquest, the lordship of Denbigh was divided into grazing
districts which had become the units of tribal food-rents, and which were
adopted for purposes of future taxation. These districts were called
by the scribes _villatæ_, and were occupied by gwelys of tribesmen and
sometimes also by gwelys of non-tribesmen. Their homesteads or huts were
occupied in severalty. Their grazing rights were undivided common rights,
and within each gwely the rights of families and individuals were also
undivided common rights.
Further, the Denbigh Extent shows how easy it was to shift the whole
body of tribesmen of this or that gwely, with its herds, from one
district to another, according to convenience or the needs of population,
without disturbing the complex rights within the gwely. The families and
individuals carried their rights, _inter se_, with them wherever they
and their herds might go, and were liable to pay the dues required from
whatever villata for the time being might be occupied by them.
Even the homesteads of the tribesmen seem to have been temporary, in the
light of the description given by Giraldus Cambrensis. They could carry
their hearth-stones with them wherever they went, so that the result
seems to be that the groups of kindreds could always have been easily
shifted about, as they were in fact after the English conquest, from one
district or ‘villata’ to another. The geographical divisions thus became
the permanent fiscal units in tribal arrangements. Both in the surveys
and in the Codes we find the villata or district, and not the family
group, the fixed unit for tribal food-rents to the chieftain, and for
taxation after the English conquest.
[Sidenote: The ‘tref’ or ‘maenol’ paying the ‘tunc pound.’]
The surveys so far agree with the Codes. The _villata_ of the surveys was
the taxable unit, and in some cases still paid the tunc pound (or 20_s._)
in lieu of the chieftain’s food-rents. In other cases escheats and other
causes had varied the amount. In the Codes of South Wales the unit for
the tunc pound was the _tref_, and in the Venedotian Code of North Wales
the _maenol_ of four trefs.
Now, as in the surveys the family groups or gwelys were located so as
to occupy sometimes several villatæ, and sometimes undivided shares in
villatæ along with others, so, if we may take the villata of the surveys
as equivalent to the tref or maenol of the Codes, we must expect to find
that the kindreds of tribesmen at the period of the Codes were scattered
in the same way over the trefs and maenols. And, as the maenol was a
group of trefs, the _tref_ is the unit of tribal occupation as to which a
clear understanding is most necessary. In this, however, we may be, after
all, only partly successful.
The word _tref_, though generally used for a homestead or hamlet, seems
from its other meanings to involve the idea of a _group_.
[Sidenote: The tref and its ‘randirs.’]
There were cases in which a disputed matter of fact had to be established
upon the evidence of men of the _gorvotref_, _i.e._ by men of the
groups outside the tref in which the question in dispute arose.[30] And
this _gorvotref_ was not merely the next adjoining tref or trefs, but
it consisted of those _randirs_ or divisions of neighbouring trefs of
uchelwrs, or tribesmen, whose boundaries touched the tref in which the
disputed facts arose. Neighbouring randirs of taeog trefs, _i.e._ the
trefs of non-tribesmen, were excluded, presumably because the testimony
of taeogs in matters relating to tribesmen was not relied on. But this
compound of the word tref implies that its general sense was a group of
homesteads. That, in general, trefs had defined boundaries, is clear from
the fact that it was an offence to break them, and this applied also to
the randirs or divisions of the tref.[31]
[Sidenote: The trefgordd of one herd and one plough.]
Speaking, then, of the group generally known as a tref, we must regard
it, not only as a taxable area, but also as the natural group known
everywhere as a _trefgordd_, _i.e._ the natural group of the homesteads
of relatives or neighbours acting together as a single community as
regards their cattle and their ploughing.
The typical lawful _trefgordd_ is thus described:--
This is the complement of a lawful _trefgordd_: nine houses and
one plough and one oven (odyn) and one churn (_gordd_) and one
cat and one cock and one bull and one herdsman.[32]
There is another passage which mentions the nine buildings in the tref.
These persons do not forfeit life.…
The necessitous for the theft of food after he has traversed
three trevs, and nine houses in each trev, without obtaining a
gift though asked for.[33]
So, in case of fire from negligence in a tref, the holder of the house
in which it arose was to pay for the damage to the next houses on each
side if they took fire.[34] And again no indemnity was to be paid to the
owners in a trefgordd for damages from the fire of a smithy if covered
with shingles or tiles or sods, nor from the fire of a bath, provided
always that the smithy and the bath were at least seven fathoms from the
other houses in the trefgordd.[35]
[Sidenote: Not always of one gwely only.]
The description above quoted of the normal trefgordd suggests that the
herd under the one herdsman did not belong to one person or homestead,
but to many; and so far it seems to be consistent with the surveys which
represent the villatæ as occupied by the cattle of several family groups
who had grazing rights therein.
And this, too, accords with what the Denbigh Extent tells us of the
individual tribesmen, viz. that only some of them had homesteads.
So-and-so ‘habet domum’ or ‘non habet domum.’[36] The young tribesman
with his _da_ thus may have joined in a common homestead with some one
else--probably with his parents or near relatives.
Distinguishing, then, the tref as a taxable area from the trefgordd, and
still confining attention to the trefgordd as a cluster of homesteads
united for the practical purpose of occupation, let us recur to the
things which bound the trefgordd into one group, viz. the one plough, the
one oven, the one churn, the one bull, and the one herdsman.
Here are the two elements combined of pastoral and agricultural
co-operation, and the trefgordd is the local and physical unit of this
co-operation.
[Sidenote: The unit of co-operative dairy farming. The common herdsman
and his dog.]
Taking first the pastoral element, the trefgordd was a working unit
of co-operative dairy-farming. The cattle of several households or
individuals were put together in a common herd with a common bull and
under the care of a common herdsman (bugeil) and his dog. It may be
regarded as a group of the homesteads of the persons in charge of such a
herd, and the tribesmen of a gwely may have cattle in the herds of more
than one trefgordd.
Three things were ‘ornamental’ to a trefgordd, ‘a book, a teacher versed
in song, and a smith (gov) in his smithy;’ but a trefgordd herdsman was
an ‘indispensable’ of the _hendrev_,[37] and, when engaged with his herd
in summer on the mountain, _his_ ‘three indispensables’ were ‘a bothy,
his herdsman’s dog, and a knife;’ and the three indispensables of his
bothy were a roof-tree, roof-supporting forks, and wattling, and he was
at liberty to cut them in any wild wood he pleased.[38]
So far, then, as the pastoral element was concerned, the trefgordd was
occupied by a little group of tribesmen engaged in dairy-farming having
charge of cattle in a common herd, with a common bull, and under the care
of a common herdsman and his dog.
[Sidenote: The herd of 24 kine.]
Custom, grown out of traditional experience of what a single herdsman and
his dog could manage, had determined, it seems, the size of the normal
herd. Thus in the Gwentian Code[39] we are told that ‘a legal herd of
cattle is 24 kine.’ And custom tenaciously adhered to tribal rules in
such matters.
Thus in the Denbigh Extent it is mentioned that the whole villata of
Arquedelok was _in manu domini_ by reason of escheats and exchanges, and
that a portion of it was let _ad firmam_ to nine firmarii, each of whom
held for a term of years 31 acres, with one bull and 24 cows, paying per
annum 73_s._ 4_d._, and rendering to the lord at the end of his term
the said bull and cows or their price, together with the land and a
house built thereon.[40] Here, even in a case in which Henry de Lacy was
introducing into Wales holdings and herds in severalty, and very possibly
introducing English tenants, he adhered to the Welsh tribal rule of the
one bull and 24 cows to the herd. So also in the survey of St. David’s,
under the head _Glaston_ in Breconshire, the number 24 of _grossa
animalia_ is spoken of as the usual number _ab antiqua consuetudine_, and
in the arrangement of common pasture one great animal is said to count as
equal to twelve sheep.
The normal herd of the trefgordd was then 24 cows, or their equivalent in
bullocks and sheep.
During the summer months the herdsman living out on the mountains was
responsible with his dog for the cattle of the trefgordd. And his dog was
worth as much as a cow or an ox, if it was one that ‘will go _before_
the herd in the morning and _behind_ them in the evening, and make three
turns _round_ them in the night.’[41]
Having no cattle of his own in the herd, the herdsman’s testimony as
to whose cattle were injured, and as to whose cattle had done the
injury, was held, when such cases arose, to be sufficient to make the
owner responsible, while as regards injuries done by the cattle of one
trefgordd to those of another there was joint responsibility.[42] There
is common sense in such rules to begin with, and then, having grown into
custom, they become perpetuated when custom is codified.
[Sidenote: The common churn.]
The trefgordd possessed further a common churn. This implies that the
milk of the cows was thrown altogether into this one churn as in Swiss
mountain communes now. One of the dues from a taeog trev, _i.e._ a group
of _non_-tribesmen, was a cheese made from a day’s milking of all the
cows in the herd. So that we note in passing that the taeog-tref, _i.e._
of non-tribesmen, also had its herd and was in fact a trefgordd.[43]
In winter the cattle came down into the lowlands and grazed on the
pastures near the tyddyns or homesteads of the tref, and as each of these
had its corn and cattle-yard,[44] we may conclude that each owner penned
in his own cattle at night during the winter months or joined with some
other tribesmen who had a homestead in doing so. The rules as to the
divisions of the tyddyns probably referred to these winter homesteads so
held in quasi-severalty.
We need not dwell upon the common _oven_. Every hamlet in Brittany
possesses its common oven to this day, often in the middle of the village
green. Nor need we more than mention the common plough, to the team of
which the tribesmen contributed oxen for the _cyvar_ or common ploughing
of the portion of the waste agreed upon for each year’s corn crop.
[Sidenote: The trefgordd the unit for food rents. The tribesmen could be
shifted about.]
The attempt to realise what this practical unit--the trefgordd--was, will
not be thrown away if it should help us to understand how easily it lent
itself to the arrangement of the chieftain’s food-rents or tribute in
after-times of taxation. Granted that some such system of trefgordds or
clusters of trefgordds pretty generally prevailed, having grown up as a
matter of convenience in a grazing community, it is obvious how easily it
might become the unit of tribute or taxation. Just as in the Domesday
Survey the number of ploughs affords such a unit, so in a tribal
community a district might easily be fiscally estimated at so many herds,
or so many churns, or so many ploughs. All these would mean so many
trefgordds. And whatever the relations of the trefgordd to the villata
of the surveys might be, and however much or often the actual residents,
with their herds, might be shifted from one district to another, the
district, as in the Denbigh Extent, would remain the permanent unit for
payments.
[Sidenote: The _firma unius noctis_. Afterwards commuted into money
payments.]
In the early stages of tribal life, when the chieftain of the tribe moved
from one district to another and received his food-rents in the actual
form of ‘the night’s entertainment,’ each customary place of encampment
in his annual progress would become the centre at which the food-rents
would be paid and services rendered for as many nights’ entertainment as
his accustomed stay in the place. In later stages, when the chieftain’s
dues were commuted into money, the ‘tunc pound’ in lieu of food-rents
easily became, as we find it in the surveys, a charge on the district
rather than on the shifting tribesmen and their herds.
And when the power of the chieftain had grown with time, and instead of
‘nights’ entertainments’ obtained in the primitive way by the actual
movement of himself and his retinue from place to place, the food-rents
or the tunc pounds in lieu of them were delivered at his palace, he would
become the recipient of a regular revenue. And out of this revenue it
would become easy for him to reward a follower or endow a church by the
transfer of so many food-rents or tunc pounds in lieu of them, or the
revenue from such and such a district, or of so many of its trefgordds,
without disturbing the internal working of the system or the daily life
of the tribesmen and their herds. When Beowulf returns to his chieftain
after his exploit and is rewarded by the gift of a palace and so many
‘thousands,’ we naturally ask of what, and how it could be done. We may
not be able to say off-hand what the unit was, but we get from the Welsh
example some rough idea of what tribal tribute and income were, and how
these could be readily gathered and transferred.
V. THE METHOD OF PAYMENT OF GALANAS BETWEEN KINDREDS.
Postponing for a while the consideration of the position of the various
classes of non-tribesmen, but still keeping in view the fact that in
considerable numbers they were practically sharers with the tribesmen in
the rights of grazing and occupation of land, we are now in the position
to realise to some extent what happened when a murder had taken place.
[Sidenote: No galanas for murder within the kindred.]
If it was of some one within the kindred, there was, as we have said, no
slaying of the murderer. Whether it were a parricide or a fratricide, or
the murder of a near kinsman, under Cymric custom there was no galanas,
nothing but execration and ignominious exile.
[Sidenote: The blood feud and therefore blood fine between kindreds.]
But if a tribesman of one kindred were killed by a tribesman of another
kindred, then it was a serious matter of blood feud between the kindreds,
or of the payment of the blood fine. The tribal conscience demanded
vengeance or composition.
[Sidenote: The slayer flees to a church with his cattle.]
It sometimes happened that the murderer had fled to a church for safety,
taking his cattle with him. For the clergy or monks at the place of
refuge had a herd of cattle of their own, and with them the murderer’s
cattle were allowed to wander and graze so long as they returned nightly
to the refuge.[45]
[Sidenote: Six cows for the saraad or insult.]
There he remained presumably till the kindred of the murdered tribesman,
through negotiation and arrangement of the chiefs of the kindreds, had
agreed to accept the payment of the galanas, if it were the case of
an uchelwr or full tribesman, of 126 cows. Six cows, as we shall see
hereafter, were _saraad_ for the insult, and 120 cows galanas for the
murder. The saraad was paid first--six cows or other cattle to the same
value belonging to the murderer were driven from the herd in payment.
The murderer’s life was then safe, and presumably he might return with
his cattle to his place.
Within a fortnight, the tribesmen of the murderer’s kindred met to
apportion the payment of the rest. They came from trefgordds far and
near, from the territories sometimes of various higher territorial
chieftains within whose districts they had grazing rights.
[Sidenote: 120 cows by fortnightly instalments for galanas.]
The collected tribesmen having apportioned the payment, fortnight after
fortnight instalments must be paid till the whole number in value of 120
cows was completed.[46]
But by whom was the payment to be made?[47]
[Sidenote: The slayer’s near family pay 40 cows.]
Forty cows must first be found by the _murderer_, his _father_, _mother_,
_brothers_, and _sisters_ with him. They doubtless helped one another,
but theoretically, in one or other of the common herds, there must have
been cattle belonging to the murderer, his father, mother, brothers, and
sisters, or how could they have paid their shares? There was nothing
unreal in this liability of each to pay a share, for had the murderer
been slain each one of them would have received, instead of having to
pay, a share in 40 cows.
The murderer himself had to pay a third of the 40 cows if he had them.
His father and mother between them paid the next third, and the brothers
and sisters the remaining third, the sisters paying half what the
brothers did.[48] The herds of many a trefgordd must be thinned before
this could be done.
[Sidenote: The other 80 fall on the kindred.]
The remainder of the galanas, viz. 80 cows, fell on the kindred, to the
seventh degree or fifth cousins. The paternal relations had to find two
thirds of it and the maternal one third, and these kindreds embraced the
descendants from the great-grandparents of the great-grandparents on both
sides.
In the first fortnight the kindred on the father’s side had to find half
what was due from them. In the second fortnight they had to find the
other half, and in the third fortnight the maternal kindred had to find
their share, till so at last the full tale of the 120 cows was paid. The
oath of peace from the kindreds of the murdered man could then be given,
and the murderer and his kinsmen, be at peace.[49]
[Sidenote: The slayer’s right of ‘spear penny.’]
But what happened if the murderer could not find the cattle for his third
of the 40 cows which he and his immediate family had to find? He had yet
a right, as a member of the greater kindred, to claim in aid a ‘spear
penny’ from all those male kinsmen descended from a common ancestor on
his father’s side two steps further back, _i.e._ still more distantly
related to him than those included in the kindred to the seventh degree
who had already paid their share. Even if the slayer were a woman, she
had the same right of spear penny from the men of her kindred to help her
to make her payment.[50]
[Sidenote: The solidarity of the kindred and individual liability within
it.]
So this attempt to realise what was involved in the payment of an
ordinary case of galanas brings us back to the recognition of the double
aspect of the kindred in the structure of tribal society--its solidarity
and joint responsibility, on the one hand, as against outsiders, the
whole kindred being responsible in the last resort; on the other hand the
individual responsibility of its members, graduated according to nearness
of relationship, for the crimes of their relative.
[Sidenote: Each had his _da_ or cattle for maintenance and so could
contribute to the payment.]
In Cymric tribal society this was made possible by the broad fact that
both males and females in the group of kindred, on both paternal and
maternal sides, liable to pay, had cattle of their own in the common
herd, each having received his or her _da_ for maintenance by right of
kin and descent from the common ancestor or chieftain of the kindred. The
two things surely hang together. And therefore, if we find in the laws of
other tribes somewhat similar rules regarding the payment of wergelds, it
probably will be worth while to inquire further whether the corresponding
structure of tribal society, or something more or less equivalent to it,
may not be present also.
VI. THE AMOUNT OF THE CYMRIC GALANAS.
[Sidenote: The galanas and the saraad distinct things.]
In all the Welsh Codes the galanas, as already mentioned, is described in
a peculiar form. It is a combination of two items, viz. the saraad, or
payment for insult, and the galanas proper.
Thus the galanas of the innate boneddig, or young tribesman, accepted by
the kindred as a tribesman of nine descents of Cymric blood, is described
as ‘three kine and three score kine,’ that of the _uchelwr_ or _breyr_ as
‘six kine and six score kine.’
The explanation of this is obtained from the following passage:--
What is the galanas of the breyr without office? Six kine and six
score kine. The six score kine is the galanas and the six kine is
for saraad of the corpse.[51]
So also in the Gwentian Code:--
When a married man shall be murdered his saraad is first paid and
then his galanas, for the wife has the third of the saraad, and
she has no part of the galanas.[52]
So also in the Venedotian Code:--
No one is killed without being first subjected to saraad. If a
man be married, let a third of the man’s saraad be given to his
wife and let the two shares be placed with the galanas, and after
that let the galanas be divided into three shares and let the
third share go to the lord as exacting third.[53]
[Sidenote: The wife shared in the saraad of her husband, not in the
galanas.]
The reason why the wife has a share in the saraad and not in the galanas
has already been explained. She suffers from the personal affront or
insult to her slain husband and shares in the saraad. But she has no
blood relationship with her husband, and only the husband’s kindred are
therefore entitled to share in the galanas, as her husband’s kindred
alone would have been concerned in the feud.
The saraad and the galanas were therefore separate things and subject
to separate rules, though both payable on the murder of a tribesman.
The galanas proper is what must be regarded in any comparison with
Continental wergelds.
[Sidenote: That of the ‘uchelwr’ 120 cows; of the young tribesman 60
cows.]
The real galanas of the uchelwr or breyr, apart from the saraad, was 120
cows, and that of the young innate boneddig who had received his _da_ but
had no family was 60 cows. In one of the Codes his galanas when _married_
is said to be 80 cows.
Now in what currency was the galanas paid? Formerly, according to the
Codes, all payments were made in cattle, and the galanas proper was
reckoned in scores of cows.
But of what cow? How was the normal cow for practical purposes to be
defined? It is a question worth answering, because we may probably take
the Cymric method, of valuing the cow as a unit of currency in cattle,
as at any rate suggestive of the methods generally adopted by other
tribes.
[Sidenote: Description of the normal cow.]
According to the Venedotian Code the cow was of full normal value when in
full milk and until her fifth calf.
And if there be any dispute concerning her milk, she is to be
taken on the 9th day of May to a luxuriant place wherein no
animal has been before her, and the owner is to milk her without
leaving any for the calf, and put the milk in the measure vessel,
and if it be full twice a day that is sufficient; and if it be
not, the deficiency is to be compensated by oatmeal until the
feast of St. Curic, thence until the feast of St. Michael by
barley meal, and from thence until the calendar of winter by rye
meal.
Others say that the worth of the milk deficient in the measure is
to be returned to the possessor of the cow; if half the milk be
deficient, half the worth; if a third of the milk, a third of the
worth; and that is the best mode.[54]
Then the _milk measure_ is described thus:--
The measure for her milk is, three thumbs at the bottom, six in
the middle of the vessel, and nine at the top, and nine in its
height diagonally (_enyhyd en amrescoeu_), and the thumb whereby
the vessel is to be measured (in case of dispute) is the breadth
of the judge’s thumb.
In the Dimetian Code substantially the same rules are given, except that
the measure of the cow’s milking is smaller.
The measure of a vessel for a cow’s milk is nine thumbs at its
edge, and three at the bottom, and seven diagonally from the
off-side groove to the near-side edge in height.[55]
The only difference is between the seven and the nine thumbs of diagonal
measurement. Possibly there may be some error in the figures, and the
measure may have been the same in both Codes.
Returning to the galanas; although it was reckoned in the Codes in scores
of cows, a fixed equation had already been made between cows and silver.
[Sidenote: The cow reckoned as three ‘scores’ or ounces of silver.]
The normal cow was equated in the Codes with ‘three scores of silver.’
And in the Latin version of the Dimetian Code the ‘score of silver’ is
translated by ‘uncia argenti.’ The score of silver at the date of the
Code was therefore an ounce of silver. So that the reckoning is the
Frankish or Anglo-Saxon one of twenty pence to the ounce.
The score of pence of 32 wheat-grains would make the ounce of 640
wheat-grains: that is, the ounce of the pound of 240_d._, or 7680
wheat-grains--the pound in use in England after the time of Kings Offa
and Alfred, and at the date of the Codes.
[Sidenote: The galanas of the ‘uchelwr’ 30 lbs. of silver. At a ratio of
1:12 equal to the gold mina of 200 solidi.]
The galanas of the uchelwr or breyr being 120 cows, and the cow being
reckoned at three scores or ounces of silver, the galanas would equal 360
scores or ounces, or thirty pounds of silver.
The ratio of gold to silver after the temporary disturbance under
Charlemagne had, as we have seen, settled down again to the Imperial
ratio of 1:12.
Now thirty pounds of 7680 wheat-grains equal 230,400 wheat-grains, and
this number of silver wheat-grains divided by twelve equalled exactly
19,200 wheat-grains of gold. So that this Celtic galanas of the Cymric
uchelwr or breyr of 120 cows, like so many Continental wergelds, was
apparently exactly equal to 200 _gold solidi_ of ninety-six wheat-grains,
_i.e._ the heavy gold mina of Imperial standard.
VII. THE METHODS OF TREATMENT OF STRANGERS OR NON-TRIBESMEN.
[Sidenote: Strangers in blood how treated.]
Another point upon which special inquiry is made in this volume regards
tribal methods of treating strangers in blood and slaves.
There is no subject requiring more careful investigation than the
combination of circumstances out of which arose what is roughly called
serfdom, _i.e._ the attachment of tenants to the land rendering services
to a lord. I shall not be suspected of suggesting that tribal customs and
methods were the _sole_ factors which produced serfdom and of ignoring
the influences which came from Roman methods of managing landed estates,
and from Roman law modified by ecclesiastical usage.
Indeed, I have insisted from the first that while, in the ‘Germania’ of
Tacitus, the germs may be found of an ‘embryo manor,’ both Roman and
German elements probably combined in producing the later manorial system
and serfdom which grew up in what were once the Roman provinces of Gaul
and the two Germanies, and even also in Britain.[56] But I think that
in Cymric tribal custom we may find a fresh clue worth following in the
attempt to gather from Continental evidence the methods likely to be used
by conquering German or Anglo-Saxon tribes in the treatment of strangers
in blood.[57]
[Sidenote: After four generations on the land they become _adscripti
glebæ_ and obtain recognition of kindred.]
In Welsh tribal custom _alltuds_ or strangers and their descendants (not
necessarily otherwise unfree persons) having some special circumstances
in their favour, being allowed to settle within the district of a greater
or lesser chieftain upon land which, in a sense, may have been his
demesne land, were free to remove and settle under another chieftain,
unless and until they had remained on the same land or under the same
lordship for four generations. But thereafter the great-grandchildren of
the original settlers became _adscripti glebæ_. And this fixture to the
land, or rather to the lordship, was apparently not looked upon as in any
way a degradation in rank, but on the contrary a step in advance towards
the recognition of tribal rights. The great-grandson of the stranger did
not indeed become a Cymric tribesman, but he gained the recognition of
his status as the founder of a kindred of his own, the members of which
in after-generations would, as kinsmen, be able to swear for and defend
one another.
This being so in the case of free strangers coming into the country, the
next question is what was the position of the semi-servile class, the
_aillts_ and _taeogs_ of the Codes, who and whose ancestors for many
generations had been born upon the land in a semi-servile condition?
[Sidenote: Their rights increase with growth of kindred.]
The fixture to the land of the aillt or taeog was not the special mark so
much of a semi-servile condition as of his _want of recognised kindred_,
and under the local custom of South Wales it seems that he too, like the
alltud, could sometimes arrive at the recognition of kindred, without
indeed becoming a Cymric tribesman, at the end of four generations
of residence under the chieftain of the land; and even to further
recognition of it, involving a still better position as to rights, at
the ninth generation. The ninth man in South Wales seems according to
local custom in some districts to have, at last, climbed the highest rung
of the ladder, and to have attained the right to claim the status of a
Cymric tribesman.
This curious rise under Cymric custom, by steps of four generations,
up the ladder towards the recognition of tribal rights, seems to have
a suggestive correspondence with the reverse process under manorial
usage of proving the serfdom of a _nativus_ by showing that the
great-grandfather was a _nativus_ on the lord’s land, the manorial rule
being that settlement on servile land for four generations made the
posterity of an original settler into _nativi_.[58]
[Sidenote: Want of kindred the key to their position.]
Once more let us try to realise what this meant, and what was the
position of these Cymric non-tribesmen in regard to their settlement on
land.
If under the guidance of the Codes we turn to the extents and surveys,
we find them living, in some cases, not mixed up with the tribesmen, but
in separate groups, or trefs, or trefgordds. There may be here and there
exceptional alltuds or strangers of a higher class growing up, by the
gradual process of intermarriage for four generations with tribeswomen,
into the status of tribesmen. But the mass of the stranger class were
aillts and taeogs living in separate _taeog trefs_, though, according to
the surveys, sharing, often in common, certain rights of grazing over
certain districts with gwelys of tribesmen. Now these groups of taeogs
and aillts were, according to the Codes, as we have seen, of two classes,
and we recognise the same two classes when we find in the surveys not
only groups of taeogs in taeog-trefs but also gwelys of non-tribesmen.
The normal group of the taeog-tref differed from the free tref in the
fact that in it no family rights were recognised. All the members of it
shared in its rights and payments equally _per capita_, and not _per
stirpes_. They were all liable as a body, few or many, for the whole
amount of the dues to the chieftains. During their fathers’ lifetime sons
shared _pari passu_ and equally with their parents, and other members of
the group, in the pasture and common ploughing, except youngest sons, who
remained with their fathers.
In the gwelys, on the other hand, as in the gwelys of tribesmen, there
was recognition of family or blood relationships, and a patriarchal
element.
There were thus under Cymric tribal custom various subordinate grades or
classes. Beginning at the bottom of the ladder were:--
(1) The slaves who could be bought and sold, and who were reckoned as
worth one pound of silver.
(2) The taeogs and aillts or permanent _nativi_, born non-tribesmen,
without recognised family rights.
(3) Non-tribesmen growing or having grown in four generations into gwelys
of non-tribesmen with recognised family rights.
(4) Strangers of exceptional position who, having married into the tribe,
had become tribesmen in the fourth generation by repeated intermarriage.
And once more the fact should never be lost sight of, that the gradual
growth into tribal or quasi-tribal rights was not a growth into
exactly what in a modern sense would be called individual freedom.
It was accompanied by the growth of ties which bound the family to
the chieftain, till at the moment that at the fourth generation the
recognition of rights of kindred was attained, the family found itself,
as we have seen, so closely tied to the chieftain and the land that the
newly recognised gwely had become _adscriptus glebæ_.
Finally, the tribal logic of the case was probably something like this:--
[Sidenote: The stranger a kinless man who has no protection but from his
lord till a kindred has grown up around him.]
The free tribesman is the man who belongs to a kindred who can protect
him by oath and by sword. Until a stranger has kinsmen who can do this
he is an odd or kinless man, protected only by his lord. If he be killed
his galanas goes to his lord; he has no recognised kin to receive it.
If, on the other hand, he is charged with slaying another, he has no kin
to swear to his innocence, the oath of a non-tribesman not being held
good as against a tribesman. If guilty, he has no kin bound to fight
in the feud for him, or to help him to pay a galanas for his crime. So
that even when at the fourth generation the descendant of the alltud
becomes the founder of a gwely he has gained only half the status of a
tribesman. It is not till the fourth generation of descendants in the
gwely, _i.e._ the seventh generation from the original settler, that a
complete kindred has grown up. It is not till then that the descendant
of the original alltud is surrounded by a full group of relatives, born
in his great-grandfather’s gwely, whose oaths can be taken and who can
protect him by oath and sword or in payment of galanas. All this time the
alltud family have been more or less dependent on the protection of the
chieftain, and rights and obligations are apt to be correlative.
The object of this essay is to inquire how far, in the case of other
tribes, evidence may be found of the working of somewhat similar tribal
instincts, resulting in customary rules more or less like those of the
Cymry, so that at last, turning attention to the Anglo-Saxon laws, we
may be able all the more fully to recognise and appreciate in them the
traits of tribal custom, which among other factors went to the making of
Anglo-Saxon England.
In the meantime, for future reference, the following list of the galanas
of various classes will be found convenient:--
The chief of kindred 180 cows In Gwent and Dimetia 540,
The uchelwr 120 ” and his family 180
Man with family without office 80 ”
The innate boneddig unmarried 60 ”
The alltud of the brenhin or chief 60 ”
The alltud of uchelwrs 30 ”
Bondman 1lb. of silver or 4 ”
Bondman from beyond sea 6 ”
[Illustration]
CHAPTER III.
_THE EVIDENCE OF BEOWULF ON TRIBAL CUSTOM REGULATING FEUDS &c._
[Sidenote: What were the laws of the blood feud?]
The object of the short study, in this chapter, of _Beowulf_, is to learn
what incidental information it may give of tribal usage regarding the
_blood feud_, especially on points which, in the case of the substituted
wergeld, present doubt and difficulty.[59]
Allusion has already been made to some of these points. Did the rule
excluding galanas or blood-fine within the kindred extend beyond the
gwely to the greater kindred? What happened to a tribesman in a feud
between his paternal and maternal kindreds? Did he abstain from taking
sides, or did a marriage so far unite two families or kindreds as to make
them one for the purpose of blood-fine or feud, so as to prevent the feud
or blood-fine from arising?
These are questions upon which we want light from the point of view of
Welsh tribal custom, and upon which we approach Beowulf for light, with
eyes open also to other matters of tribal usage as they may turn up.
[Sidenote: An 8th century story of blood feuds.]
Beowulf for the present purpose may be taken as an Anglian or
Northumbrian recension of a story founded upon Scandinavian
tradition, and designed for use or recital at some 8th century royal
court--possibly, if Professor Earle’s suggestion be correct, that of King
Offa.
The western horizon of the story extends to the Frisian shores, but the
scene seems chiefly to lie in the Baltic.
The plot involves tribal relations between a chieftain of the Danes
possibly of Zealand, and two Swedish chieftains. The two latter concern
us most, and they seem to be the chiefs of two kindreds--Geats and
Swedes--Beowulf himself being the link between them, his mother having
married from one into the other kindred. This marriage at any rate was
one _between_ two kindreds.
There is no apparent effort on the part of the poet to enlighten the
reader or those who heard him either upon the pedigrees of the persons
mentioned in his story or upon the rules of Scandinavian tribal custom.
But it happens that, by incidental hints dropped in the telling of the
tale, the pedigree of each of the kindreds involved can be fairly made
out, and has already been made out by translators and critics.
[Sidenote: involving blood feuds between Beowulf’s paternal and maternal
kindred.]
And as the story involves a homicide within Beowulf’s maternal kindred,
and fighting and bloodshed between the kindreds in spite of the marriage
link, and as it deals also with outside feuds, it happens to present
remarkable opportunities for studying the action of tribal custom in
various cases.
The evidence it gives is made all the more valuable by its being an
Anglian version of Scandinavian traditions, inasmuch as the poet, or his
Anglian interpreter, assumes throughout that the laws of the game, under
Scandinavian tribal custom, were too well known to need explanation to
his Anglian audience. So that by inference it would seem that the customs
of Baltic chieftains were familiar at the court of Offa, and not very far
removed from those of Anglian tradition.
[Sidenote: The Scyldings.]
The poet introduces us first to a tribe of _Gar-Danes_ and the clan
or kindred of Scyldings. Scyld the son of Scef is the ancestor of the
Scyldings. He is an Adeling who has torn their meadthrones from many
tribes (mægdum) and in true tribal fashion compelled them to pay tribute.
Surrounded in his old age by numerous descendants and other _gesiths_ who
have resorted to him, the chieftain has become a great hero in his tribe
(mægdh).
[Sidenote: The burial of Scyld by his ‘gesiths.’]
A graphic description of the burial of Scyld in his ships by his gesiths
is a fitting introduction to the poem. Let us mark in passing that the
word mægd evidently may mean a much wider kindred than the near family of
a great-grandfather’s descendants (the Welsh gwely). One mægd conquers
another and makes it pay tribute.
Again the word gesith evidently includes, with members of the near kin,
such others, not necessarily blood relations, as may have joined the
warrior band of the hero. They may or may not have been adopted into
his kindred in becoming his men, but this extension of comradeship or
kinship, as the case may be, to these gesiths adds to the greatness and
power of his mægd.
SCYLD | BEOWULF | HEALFDENE | HEOROGAR { HEOROWEARD
The great- | (not of | The father | (61 and { (2162)
grandfather | the story) | | 467) {
| The great- | |
| grandfather | +-HROTHGAR { HRETHRIC
| The { (1190,
| Scylding { 1837)
| m. {
| Wealtheow { HROTHMUND
| (61 and {
| 613) { FREAWARE
| { (2023)
+-HALGA
| (youngest { HRODULF
| son) (61) { (1018, 1165,
| { 1182)
|
+-ELAN { ONELA
| daughter {
| presumably {
| married to {
| Ongentheow { OTHERE
| the { ‘sister’s { EANMUND
| Scylfing { sons’ to { 2929
| (62-63) { Hrothgar {
| { 2929 { EADGIL
| { { 239
[Sidenote: Hrothgar the great-grandson of Scyld.]
The opening episode of the burial of Scyld is followed by a few lines
which reveal something of the pedigree of his descendant Hrothgar the
Scylding. The pedigree of Hrothgar, in true tribal fashion, makes Scyld
his great-grandfather. He is ‘Hrothgar the Scylding,’ may we not say,
_because_ Scyld was his great-grandfather, just as Hengist and Horsa were
_Oiscings_ according to Bede, who in stating their pedigree makes _Oisc_
their great-grandfather, and just as in the Welsh surveys the gwelys
still bear the great-grandfather’s name though he be long dead, because
the gwely hangs together till the fourth generation.
So far as it goes here is at least an indication that the nearer kindred
(or gwely) might be much the same thing both in Celtic and Teutonic
tribes.
But Hrothgar is not described only as chieftain of his nearer kindred.
Success in arms had made him head of many _winemâgas_ (blood friends) and
he was surrounded by a mighty _mago-dright_ (band of kin). He had built
himself a famous _folk-stede_, or hall, called ‘Heort,’ and all had gone
well with him till the monster Grendel came upon the scene.
The deliverer from the monster was Beowulf, the hero of the story. He
comes from another kindred, that of the Scylfings, whose pedigree, not
fully given, seems to have been something like the following.
Scylf was the common ancestor of the Swedes or Scylfings. The tribe
was divided into two families in the elder of which descended the
chieftainship of the Scylfings (2382).
{ ONGENTHEOW {
{ who presumably {
(1) Links not stated { married Elan, { ONELA {
{ sister of Hrothgar { { EANMUND
{ the Scylding (62) { OHTHERE {
{ { EADGILS
Second family of WÆGMUNDINGS.
{ . . . . { ECGTHEOW-----------BEOWULF
{ { who fled to
(2) WÆGMUND { { Hrothgar
{ {
{ { WIHSTAN------------WIGLAF
[Sidenote: Beowulf a great-grandson of Wægmund and so a Wægmunding.]
At any rate the Scylfings seem to be divided into two families whose
common ancestor was Scylf. But both Beowulf and Wiglaf are spoken of as
_Wægmundings_ (2608 and 2815). The headship of the Scylfings had passed
into the older of the two families (2384), and this probably is the
reason why Beowulf is never called Beowulf the Scylfing.
The reason why Beowulf appeared as the natural helper of Hrothgar from
the monster Grendel was that his father Ecgtheow owed a debt of gratitude
to Hrothgar. ‘Fighting out a mighty feud,’ Ecgtheow had killed Heatholaf
the Wylfing (460), thereby raising another feud. Wherefore his own
people (463) fearing invasion, had caused him to flee over sea, thereby
seemingly wiping their hands of him. He seems to have fled to Hrothgar
just as the latter had become chieftain of the Scyldings on his brother
Heorogar’s death. Hrothgar compounded the feud with money (470), sending
to the Wylfings over sea ‘ancient treasures.’ Whereupon Ecgtheow swore
oath to Hrothgar and presumably became his ‘man.’ And Beowulf now, ‘at
honour’s call,’ had come to fight the monster, thereby confirming the
friendship between Geats and Gar-Danes, requiting what Hrothgar had done
for his father (459).
[Sidenote: Beowulf a thane of his maternal uncle Hygelac.]
The details of the fight need not detain us. But the fact is important
that Beowulf comes to the rescue not as a Scylfing or as representing his
paternal kindred, but as the thane of his maternal uncle Hygelac, the
chieftain of his mother’s kindred.
He approaches Hrothgar with a band of fifteen chosen warriors. When
asked from whence they came they said they were Geats, Hygelac’s
_hearthgeneats_ (260). And the meaning of the word is illustrated further
when the warriors accustomed to sleep in Hrothgar’s hall are spoken of
as Hrothgar’s _hearthgeneats_ (1581, and see 260 and 2419). When brought
into the hall Beowulf himself calls his band Hygelac’s _beod-geneats_
(344) (table geneats), and to Hrothgar he calls himself ‘mæg and
mago-thegn,’ literally ‘kin and son thane’ of Hygelac (408).
The daring deed accomplished, Beowulf’s success is rewarded by many
golden and other gifts from Hrothgar, and it is significant that on his
return he lays all these at the feet of his maternal uncle Hygelac, his
_heofodmagus_--chief of kin--whose man and kin he owns himself to be. His
position in Hygelac’s kindred thus demands careful study.
This seems to be the pedigree.
{ (1) HEREBEALD
{ killed by Hæthcyn
{
{ (2) HÆTHCYN
HRETHEL {
who had three sons { (3) HYGELAC { (1) A DAUGHTER
and one daughter { { who married Eofor
thus: { {
{ m. Hygd. { (2) HEARDRED
{ { Hygelac’s only son.
{ (4) A SISTER
{ Beowulf’s BEOWULF
{ mother Hygelac’s sister’s son.
[Sidenote: Homicide within the family unavenged.]
Beowulf is made to say that, when seven winters old, Hrethel had
received him from his father Ecgtheow and had kept him as his own child
(2420). ‘Remembering kinship’ (sippe gemunde), the old chieftain held
him in no less regard than his own three sons, Herebeald, Hæthcyn, and
Hygelac. But Hrethel’s old age was full of trouble. The worst tragedy
that came upon him was the death of his eldest son Herebeald, killed by
his second son apparently by accident.
Hæthcyn by arrow from hornbow brought him (Herebeald) down, his
near kinsman. He missed the target and shot his brother. (2440)
Here, then, was an apparently accidental homicide within the family. How
was it regarded?
One brother killed the other with bloody dart. That was a wrong
past compensation.… Any way and every way it was inevitable that
the Etheling must quit life unavenged. (2445).
The poet likens the father’s grief to that of ‘an old ceorle’ who should
see his young son ride on the gallows-tree and can do nothing but wait
while his son thus hangs, food for the ravens, as he cannot bring him
help (2450).
So did the crowned chief of the Stormfolk, in memory of
Herebeald, carry about a tumult of heart-sorrow. He could not
possibly requite the feud upon the man-slayer, neverthemore could
he pursue the warrior with hostile deeds though not beloved by
him. He then, with the sorrow wherewith that wound had stricken
him, let go life’s joys and chose the light of God. (2464.)
Thus incidentally is revealed by the poet the depth of the tribal feeling
that homicide can only be atoned for by avengement and feud, making it a
hard struggle against nature for a father to withhold revenge upon a son
for even accidental fratricide. As with the Cymry, it seems that there
could be no feud or composition within the family. Nor in the case of
accidental homicide was there apparently in the poet’s mind the necessity
of flight or outlawry, however great the craving for avengement. It is
also significant that Hæthcyn, the slayer, is made to join with his
brother Hygelac in the next warfare after Hrethel’s death (2474). The
accidental slayer remains a tribesman.
[Sidenote: Quarrel between Beowulf’s paternal and maternal kindred. He
takes no part in it.]
This next warfare was a quarrel--‘provocation and reprisal’--between
Swedes and Geats, _i.e._ between the paternal and maternal kindreds of
Beowulf. He himself, it is worth noting, did not engage in it. Onela and
Ohthere, the sons of Ongentheow (Beowulf’s paternal relation and chief of
the Scylfings or Swedes), apparently began the quarrel. They recklessly
broke the peace between the two families--Swedes and Geats. Hrethel was
no longer living. Beowulf’s maternal uncles, Hæthcyn and Hygelac, fought
on one side, and Ongentheow and his two sons on the other (2485). Hæthcyn
fell on one side and Ongentheow on the other: the latter by the hand of
Eofor--a comrade rather than kinsman of Hygelac, for he was rewarded by
the bestowal of Hygelac’s daughter. The quarrel seems to have been open
fighting, possibly from the revival of the old enmities and in breach of
tribal custom. Be this as it may, Beowulf himself took no part in the
quarrel between his maternal and paternal kindreds.
This disastrous and unnatural quarrel left Hygelac the only surviving son
of Hrethel, and so the chieftain of Beowulf’s maternal kindred.
All this irregular fighting, incidentally mentioned by the poet, was past
before Beowulf’s great enterprise against the monster Grendel. And,
as we have seen, it was as the ‘man and kin’ of Hygelac that Beowulf
appeared at Hrothgar’s court. And it was at the feet of Hygelac as his
chief of kin, and at the feet of Hygd his queen, that Beowulf laid down
his treasures on his return in safety. This exploit ended, Hrothgar
thenceforth disappears from the poem, and the poet confines himself to
Beowulf’s nearer belongings.
[Sidenote: But in feud with Frisians Beowulf fights for Hygelac, who is
killed.]
The next event in order of date is a quarrel between Hygelac and the
Frisians. This time Beowulf fights for his chieftain. But Hygelac is
killed (2357), and again the result reveals interesting traits of tribal
custom.
Beowulf returns from Friesland to Hygd the widowed queen of Hygelac. She
‘offers him rings and throne, not daring to trust that her young son
Heardred would be able to maintain the chieftainship against all stranger
folk.’ Beowulf, however, declines to become _hlaford_ over Heardred, but
supports him in his chieftainship till he should be older (2370).
Young Heardred, however, is not chieftain long (2380). The old lawless
quarrel between Beowulf’s maternal and paternal relations rises up again.
The facts, when unravelled, seem to be these:--Within Beowulf’s paternal
kindred trouble had arisen. For some cause not told, the grandsons of
Ongentheow (sons of Ohthere) had been outlawed. They are described as
wräc-mäegas (2380) and as having cast off allegiance to the chieftain of
the Scylfings. These outlawed kinsmen of Beowulf’s paternal family came
to young Heardred’s court, and whilst his guests (‘on feorme’) the young
chieftain fell by the sword of one of them (2388).
[Sidenote: Homicide within the kindred again is unavenged, though Beowulf
is guardian of the slain.]
It was Eanmund by whom this outrage was committed, and once more the
crime remained apparently unavenged. The slayer was allowed to withdraw
in safety, leaving Beowulf to succeed to the chieftainship of his
maternal kindred (2390). Again we ask why? Here was a crime committed
by an outlawed paternal kinsman of Beowulf against the chieftain of his
maternal kindred, of whom he was himself the guardian, and yet Beowulf
did not avenge it! Was it because of the kinship, or because of the
outlawry? Whilst nursing the remembrance of his chieftain’s death,
Beowulf is made to act with kindness to the other outlawed brother in
his desolation, waiting for such avengement as might come at last in the
course of things--as it did, according to the poet, when ‘with a band of
warriors over sea Eadgils died in cold and painful marches’ (2396).
[Sidenote: An outlawed tribesman not protected by his kindred.]
Avengement is made to follow too in the same way upon Eanmund the
murderer. It came from Beowulf’s paternal uncle, Weohstan. But here again
the poet is careful to record that it came not in a blood feud, but ‘in
fair fight’ with weapon’s edge (2612). And, as if to emphasise the fact
that the outlawed kinsman had forfeited all tribal rights, the poet adds
that ‘Weohstan from his kindred carried off the armour and sword of
Eanmund, Onela (Eanmund’s uncle) yielding them up to him _without a word
about a feud_, although he (Weohstan) had slain his brother’s son’ (2620).
Evidently the poet means to make it clear that Onela’s passive attitude
was due to the fact that his nephew was a lawless exile, and so no
longer entitled to protection from his kin (2612 and 2380).
The old sword known among men as the relic of Eanmund (son of
Ohthere), whom, when a lawless exile, Weohstan had slain in
fair fight with weapon’s edge; and from his kindred (magum) had
carried off the brown mottled helmet, ringed byrnie, and old
mysterious sword; which Onela yielded up to him, his nephew’s
war-harness, accoutrement complete. Not a word spake he (Onela)
about the feud, although he (Weohstan) had killed his brother’s
son. He (Weohstan) retained the spoils for many a year, bill
and byrnie, until when his own boy (Wiglaf) was able to claim
Eorlscip rank, like his father before him, then gave he to him,
before the Geats, armour untold of every sort, after which he
gave up life, ripe for the parting journey.
Thus the restrained desire of avengement incidentally is made to find
satisfaction at last as regards both the outlawed sons of Ohthere.
After these events the elder branch of the Scyldings passes out of the
poet’s interest. The only remaining heroes of the tale are the two
Wægmundings--Beowulf and Wiglaf.
A long interval had elapsed between Beowulf’s accession to the
chieftainship of his maternal kindred and the final feat of daring which
cost him his life. And it was Wiglaf, his nearest paternal kinsman, who
in the last tragedy came to his aid bearing the sword of the outlawed
Eanmund. Beowulf’s dying words to Wiglaf were: ‘Thou art the last left of
our kindred (cynnes) the Wægmundings. Fate has swept into eternity all
my kinsmen (mâgas)--eorls among men! I must after them!’ As he comes to
the rescue, Wiglaf remembers the honour done to him by Beowulf, who had
already passed on to him the hereditary right of the chieftainship of the
Wægmundings (2608).
[Sidenote: Beowulf as ‘sister’s son’ becomes chief of his maternal
kindred.]
Why had he done this? If we might tentatively use the clue given by
ancient Greek tribal custom to elucidate a Scandinavian case, we should
say that on failure of male succession the ‘sister’s son’ of Hygelac
had been called back into his mother’s kindred to become its chieftain,
leaving Wiglaf, his next of kin on his father’s side, to sustain the
chieftainship of his paternal kindred. The right of the maternal uncle,
known to have existed under early Greek law, to claim his ‘sister’s son’
if need arose, to perpetuate the mother’s paternal kindred, suggests a
similar explanation in Beowulf’s case. Such a right, found as well in
the Laws of Manu, may possibly have been inherent in Scandinavian tribal
custom also. Such a suggestion would be at least consistent with the fact
of Beowulf’s having been brought up from seven years old in the household
of his maternal grandfather, and treated by him as a son. It would be in
harmony, too, with what Tacitus describes to have been the relation of
the ‘sister’s son’ to the _avunculus_ amongst the German tribes, and the
peculiar value of the ‘sister’s son’ as a hostage.[60]
Some indirect confirmation of the probable truth of such a suggestion may
perhaps be also drawn from the fact that in Beowulf, when a man’s father
is no longer living, the poet sometimes seems to describe him as his
maternal uncle’s nephew instead of as his father’s son.
Heardred, the young son of Hygelac and Hygd his queen, after his father’s
death is spoken of no longer as Hygelac’s son, but as the _nephew
of Hereric_, ‘nefan Hererices’ (2207). Now his paternal uncles were
Herebeald and Hæthcyn, and it becomes an almost necessary inference that
Hereric was a maternal uncle. Thus:
HÆRETH (1929)
father of Hygd
+------------------------+
| |
(HERERIC?) HYGD, m. Hygelac
uncle of Heardred (2207) |
HEARDRED
nephew of Hereric[61]
(2207)
So also in the case of Hygelac himself. He was the son of Hrethel. The
poet calls him son of Hrethel (1486), and again _Hygelac Hrethling_
(1924). But after Hrethel’s death he calls him ‘Hygelac of the Geats,
_nephew of Swerting_’ (‘_Hygelac Geáta nefa Swertinges_’) (1204). Here
again it seems likely that Swerting was the maternal uncle, though the
poet, as in the other case, does not think it needful to explain that it
was so. Otherwise, why the change of epithet?
We are here recording tribal customs as revealed in Beowulf, and not
seeking for their origin in earlier stages of tribal life. We pass on,
therefore, to consider what light the story throws on the customs of the
Northern tribes as to marriage.
[Sidenote: Tribal custom as to marriage.]
It is with the chieftains’ grade of rank that we have mostly to do in
Beowulf, and nothing is more strongly emphasised by the poet than the
important place of marriage between two tribes or kindreds as a link,
recognised, however, to be a very brittle one, binding them together so
as to end or prevent the recurrence of a feud.
When Beowulf, after his first exploit in aid of Hrothgar against Grendel,
has returned to his maternal uncle and chief of kindred Hygelac, and is
recounting his adventures, the poet at the first mention of Hrothgar’s
queen makes him call her the ‘peace bond to the people.’ And in the same
breath, in telling how in Hrothgar’s hall the daughter Freaware bore the
ale-flagon, he stops to tell how that ‘she, the young, the gold dight,
was promised to the gay son of Froda; it having pleased the Friend of the
Scylfings that he, through that woman, should compose deadly enmities and
feuds.’ And the poet makes Beowulf moralise to the effect:--‘Often and
not seldom anywhere after deadly strife, it is but a little while that
the baneful spear reposes, good though the bride may be!’
[Sidenote: Marriage a link between kindreds.]
It would seem that Hrothgar had been formerly at feud with the
Heathobeards, that Froda had been killed in the feud, and that the
marriage of Freaware to Froda’s son, Ingeld, was to close the feud. But
Beowulf repeats aside to Hygelac that he does not think much of the
chances of a long continuance of peace between Scyldings and Heathobeards
(2030).
Well may it mislike the ruler of the Heathobeards and every thane
of that people when the lady goeth into hall with a prince born
of Danes, amidst the high company; upon him do glisten heirlooms
of their ancestors, ringed harness, once Heathobeardic treasure,
while they could keep the mastery of those weapons and until
they in an unlucky moment led to that buckler play their dear
comrades and their own lives. Then saith one over the beer, one
who observes them both, an old lance fighter.… ‘Canst thou, my
friend, recognise the blade, the precious steel, which thy father
carried into battle, wearing his helmet for the last time, where
the Danes slew him? … and the masters of the battlefield were the
fiery Scyldings! Now here a boy of one of those banesmen walketh
our hall … wearing the treasure which by right should have
been thine!’ So urged and egged on at every turn with galling
words, at last the moment comes that for his father’s deeds the
lady’s thane sleepeth bloodspattered after the falchion’s bite,
life-doomed! The other escapes alive! By-and-by the sworn oaths
of the warriors on either side will be broken, when in Ingeld’s
mind rankle war purposes, and care has lessened his domestic
sorrow! Therefore I deem not the loyalty of the Heathobeards
nor the alliance with the Danes secure, or the friendship firm!
(2033-2069, slightly abridged.)
What a consistent light this passage throws incidentally on the
quarrels which, in spite of the Geats and Swedes being bound together
in friendship by the marriage of Beowulf’s mother, broke out again and
again, according to the poem, between the two kindreds--quarrels in which
Beowulf himself is represented as taking no part, presumably because,
according to tribal custom, his blood relationship to both kindreds was
a bar to his taking up the feud or assuming the part of the avenger! And
how the whole story of Beowulf’s paternal kindred reveals the melancholy
fact that, however great the force of tribal custom in controlling feuds,
the wild human nature of hot-blooded tribesmen was wont to break through
restraints and often ended in the outlawry of tribesmen and the breaking
up of kindreds!
[Sidenote: Summary of the evidence of Beowulf.]
To sum up the results obtained from the study of tribal custom as
incidentally revealed in Beowulf:--
(1) There is no feud within the kindred when one kinsman slays another.
However strong the natural instinct for avengement, it must be left to
fate and natural causes. Accidental homicide does not seem to be followed
even by exile. But murder within the kindred breaks the tribal tie and is
followed by outlawry.
(2) Marriage between two kindreds is a common though precarious means of
closing feuds between them. The son of such a marriage takes no part in a
quarrel between his paternal and maternal relations.
(3) When a marriage takes place, the wife does not pass entirely out
of her own kindred into her husband’s. Her own kindred, her father and
brothers, maintain a sort of guardianship over her, and the son in some
sense belongs to both kindreds. He may have to join in his maternal
kindred’s feuds, and he may become the chieftain of his maternal kindred
on failure of direct male succession, even though by so doing he may
have to relinquish the right of chieftainship in his paternal kindred to
another kinsman.
Finally, in passing from the blood feuds to the composition substituted
for them, after what we have learned from Beowulf of tribal custom, there
need be no surprise that maternal as well as paternal relations are found
to be interested in them. We may fairly judge that tribal custom, in the
stage in which we find it in Beowulf and later in the laws of various
tribes, would not have been true to itself, had this been otherwise.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER IV.
_TRIBAL CUSTOM OF THE IRISH TRIBES._
I. THE ERIC FINE OF THE BREHON LAWS.
[Sidenote: Goidelic tribal custom differed from Cymric.]
Returning now once more to the examination of tribal custom and the
structure of tribal society in the case of tribes belonging to the Celtic
group, it might be expected that Cymric customs would be likely most
closely to accord with those of the Celtic tribes of Ireland, Brittany,
and Gaul. But it must be remembered that the Cymry whose customs are
contained in the Codes, whatever their original Continental position may
have been, are supposed to have come into Wales from the North, with
Cunedda and his sons. The Codes therefore probably represent the customs
of the Cymry of ancient Cumbria north of the Solway Frith, rather than
those of the Britons, whether Goidels or Cymry, dwelling in South Wales
and more or less subject for generations to Roman rule.
If the theory of the emigration from Wales and Cornwall into Brittany,
as the consequence of the Saxon invasion, be correct, the Britons who
emigrated into Brittany may never have shared the peculiar customs of the
immigrants into Wales following upon the conquests of Cunedda and his
sons. They may have had more in common with the Goidelic tribes of South
Wales than with the Cymric newcomers into Wales.
These considerations may well prepare the way for the recognition of
differences as well as resemblances between Cymric and Irish tribal
custom.
The system of payments for homicide amongst the ancient tribes of Ireland
as described in the Brehon Laws differed widely from that of the Cymric
Codes.[62]
In the first place, the Brehon laws describe no scale of galanas or
wergeld, directly varying with the social rank of the person killed.
Gradations of rank there were indeed, and numerous enough. But there
appears to have been only one _coirp-dire_, or body-fine, the same for
all ranks, namely seven cumhals or female slaves--the equivalent of
twenty-one cows.
[Sidenote: The Brehon _coirp-dire_ of all tribesmen the same: six cumhals
and one added.]
And when this _coirp-dire_, or price of the body or life of a man, is
further examined, it is found to consist of two parts: (1) one cumhal of
compensation (aithgin); (2) the six cumhals of the _coirp-dire_ proper.
In the tract ‘Of every Crime’[63] it is stated:--
If the man who is dead has a son, he takes the cumhal of
compensation alone. If not alive, his father is to take it. If
not alive, his brother; if he be not alive, the nearest person
to him is to take it. And then the coirp-dire is divided:
3 cumhals to the son and the father;
1 cumhal to the brother;
1 cumhal to the son and father (_sic_);
1 to the geilfine from the lowest to the uppermost man;
--so making up the 6 cumhals of the coirp-dire.
And in the ‘Book of Aicill’ (p. 537) are these lines:
Three eric fines are counselled:
(1) There is paid full compensation;
(2) And fair honest coirp-dire;
(3) And honour-price is paid.
[Sidenote: The _eneclann_ or honour-price varied with rank. The ‘eric’
fine included both.]
Besides this coirp-dire, therefore, was the _eneclann_, honour-price or
price of the face, _i.e._ payment for insult. And this was the payment,
by no means confined to homicide, which varied according to rank.
These two things then--the coirp-dire of seven cumhals and the
honour-price--made up together (with, in some cases, exceptional
additions) the eric fine.
Next as to the persons liable for its payment.
In the Corus Bescna[64] the following statement is made relating to
homicide in cases where the homicide was one of _necessity_:--
The eric fine is to be paid by the slayer’s kindred (fine), as
they divide his property (cro). He (the slayer) shall pay a
cumhal of restitution (aithgin) and as much as a son or a father
of the six cumhals of the dire-fine.
As to crimes of _non-necessity_:--[65]
he himself is to be given up for it, with his cattle and his land.
[Sidenote: The kindred of ‘near hearths’ were liable for the whole eric.]
If he has not enough to pay the eric or is not to be caught, then
it is to be paid by his son until his cattle and his land be
spent on it (or failing him) by his father in the same manner.
Lastly, failing both the son and the father,
it is to be paid by each nearest hearth (teallach) to him until
all they have is spent, or full payment of the crime is made up
among them.
So that, in the absence or in default of the murderer, at the date of
this Brehon tract, his family and kindred were answerable for the whole
of the eric in the case of wilful murder.
[Sidenote: The ‘hearths’ liable apparently to third cousins.]
The nearest hearths or ‘fine who bear the crimes of each kinsman of their
stock’ were, according to the Senchus Mor (i. p. 261):--
1. _Geil_ fine;
2. _Derb_ fine;
3. _Iar_ fine;
4. _Ind_ fine.
I think M. D’Arbois de Jubainville[66] is probably right in explaining
these four hearths or fines to be groups or grades of kindred. He divides
them thus:--
{ father;
The _geil_ fine { son;
{ grandson;
{ brother.
{ grandfather;
_derb_ fine { paternal uncle;
{ nephew;
{ first cousin.
{ great-grandfather;
_iar_ fine { great-uncle;
{ great-nephew;
{ second cousin.
{ great-great-grandfather;
_ind_ fine { great-great-uncle;
{ great-great-nephew;
{ third cousin.
Whether this interpretation of the Brehon scheme of the divisions of the
Irish fine or kindred be correct in every detail I shall not venture to
give an opinion, further than to say that, viewed in the light of other
tribal systems, it seems to me to be nearer the mark than the various
other attempts to make intelligible what after all are very obscure
passages in the Brehon Laws. The seventeen persons making up the four
divisions of the fine or kindred must be taken, I think, as representing
_classes_ of relations and not individuals; _e.g._ under the head ‘first
cousin’ must be included all ‘first cousins,’ and so on throughout.
So understood, the four hearths or groups of kindred liable for the eric
would include the sixteen grades nearest of kin to the criminal. He
himself, or the chieftain, would form the seventeenth person on the list.
The tract ‘Of every Crime’ seems to confirm the view above taken. It
states (iv. 241) that ‘for the crimes of every criminal’ he himself was
first liable.
If he has absconded it goes upon his chattels; living chattels or
dead chattels.
[Sidenote: The four ‘fines’ or ‘hearths’ were groups of kinsmen in grades
of relationship.]
The liability falls next upon his father and his brother, but, according
to the commentary, upon his son first, if he have one. These seem to be
the _geilfine_ relations or nearest hearth. And after them it falls,
according to the text, upon his ‘deirbhfine relations.’ And ‘if they have
absconded so that they cannot be caught, his crime goes upon his chief.’
But before it goes upon the chief the iarfine and other fines come in,
according to the commentary, and the _chief_ is said to be that of the
_four fines_.
The reason why the crime goes upon the deirbhfine division and
the iarfine division here before it goes upon the chief is
because it is one chief over them.… _His chief_--_i.e._ the chief
of the four families (p. 243).