VII. COMPARISON OF WESSEX AND MERCIAN WERGELDS WITH THOSE OF CONTINENTAL TRIBES.
Before passing from the Wessex to the Kentish laws it may be well to mark the position to which the evidence hitherto examined has brought us with regard to the amount of the wergelds.
Continental wergelds of 200 and 160 gold solidi for the full freeman.
We have had again and again to come back to the question of the status of the twelve-hynde and twy-hynde classes as shown by their wergelds. By the Compact between King Alfred and Guthrum the English wergelds were brought into line with Norse and other Continental wergelds. The statement of the higher wergeld in gold made possible a comparison of the Anglo-Saxon with Continental wergelds.
The result of the inquiry into the Continental wergelds of the full freeman was that they seemed to fall very distinctly into two classes—the Frankish and Norse wergeld of 200 gold solidi, on the one hand, and the Frisian, Saxon, Alamannic, Bavarian, and possibly Burgundian wergeld of 160 gold solidi on the other hand.
The ratio between these two wergelds is as 5:4.
Now, this is exactly the ratio between the two twelve-hynde wergelds of the Anglo-Saxon laws, i.e. of Wessex and of Mercia. Both were of 1200 scillings, but the Wessex scilling was of five pence and the Mercian of four pence.
The Wessex and Mercian wergelds ancient.
Finding twelve-hynde and twy-hynde wergelds in the Laws of Ine, we seem to be bound to regard the distinctions between the two classes as going back to a time two centuries at least before the inroads of the Northmen.
The position of the Dooms of Ine as they have come down to us annexed to the Laws of King Alfred might possibly have raised a doubt as to whether the incidental mention of the wergelds might not have been inserted in the text by the scribes of King Alfred. But if the Mercian wergelds were of ancient tradition, independently of the Wessex evidence, the statement of the Wessex wergelds in the Dooms of Ine need not be doubted. At the same time, the amount of the Wessex wergeld is confirmed by the wergeld of the secular thane in the Northumbrian statement, for 2000 thrymsas are equal to 6000 pence, and thus the wergeld of the thane accords with the Wessex twelve-hyndeman’s wergeld. And as this statement seems to have been rescued from times anterior to the Northmen’s invasion, it is so far independent evidence. In the same document the ceorl’s wergeld of 200 Mercian scillings is also mentioned.
The concurrence of independent traditions thus seems to trace back the difference between the Wessex and Mercian wergelds as well as the difference between the twelve-hynde and twy-hynde classes in both cases into the early Anglo-Saxon period. And if we may date them back to the time of King Ine—two centuries before the invasion of the Northmen—they may well go back earlier still. For wergelds which have already become traditional in the seventh century may not improbably have been brought by the invading tribes with them into Britain in the fifth and sixth centuries. The fact that the Mercian and Wessex wergelds differed makes it unlikely that the traditional wergelds were first adopted in Britain or acquired from the Romano-British population. That they differed exactly in the same ratio as the two classes of Continental wergelds differed is a fact which points still more strongly to a Continental origin.
At 1:10 Wessex wergeld of 6000 pence = 200 gold solidi, and the Mercian of 4800 pence = 160 gold solidi.
Moreover, the Wessex and Northumbrian wergeld of 1200 scillings of five pence—i.e. 6000 pence or sceatts at a ratio of 1:10—was equal to 600 tremisses or 200 gold solidi.
The Mercian wergeld of 1200 scillings of four pence—i.e. 4800 pence or sceatts—at the same ratio was equal to 480 tremisses or 160 gold solidi.
That the ratio of 1:10 was not an unlikely one is shown by its being the ratio under the Lex Salica between the forty scripula of silver and the gold solidus before the Merovingian reduction of the standard weight of the latter and the issue of silver tremisses.[277] It was also the ratio at which twelve Roman argentei or drachmæ of silver were apparently reckoned as equal to the Merovingian gold solidus.
The correspondence at this ratio of the Wessex twelve-hynde wergeld with the Frankish wergeld of 200 gold solidi, and of the Mercian twelve-hynde wergeld with the other Continental wergelds of 160 gold solidi, is sufficiently striking to be taken into account in any speculation as to the respective origins of the West Saxon and Mercian invading tribes. But that is not the object of this essay. It is enough to have noted a fact which may or may not turn out to be of some historical significance.
The value of the wergelds to this inquiry consists in the light they throw upon the solidarity of tribal society and the position in social rank of the various classes of Anglo-Saxon society. But we have yet to examine the laws of the Kentish kings, and it will be best to suspend any further judgment on these points until this remaining part of our task has been done.
