I. CONNECTION BETWEEN THE WERGELD OF 100 HEAD OF CATTLE AND THE MINA OF 100 GOLD STATERS.
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.
Cows.
The Cymric galanas or death fine was reckoned in cows, and the cows were equated with silver.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.’
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.