VII. THE AMOUNT OF THE KENTISH WERGELDS.
Probable Kentish wergelds eorl 600, freeman 200, Kentish scillings.
Once more we return to the amount of the wergelds of the Kentish eorl and freeman.
We have seen reason to believe that the payments of 300 and 100 scillings of the laws of Hlothære and Eadric were half-wergelds, and that the full wergelds were 600 and 200 scillings.
If they may be so considered they are at once put on line with the Frankish wergelds. The threefold wergeld of the eorl becomes evidently due to his noble birth or official position. And, if the Kentish and Frankish solidi had been alike, the similarity of the wergelds would have been complete.
As in the Frankish laws.
The wergelds of the Frankish group of laws were found to be as follows:—
| Lex Salica, Graphio or ingenuus in truste Regis | 600 | solidi | } |
| Frank or Barbarian living under Salic law | 200 | ” | |
| Lex Ripuariorum, Comes &c. in truste Regis | 600 | ” | } |
| Ingenuus | 200 | ” | |
| Lex Angliorum et Werinorum, Adalingus | 600 | ” | } |
| Liber | 200 | ” | |
| Lex Chamavorum, Homo Francus | 600 | ” | } |
| Ingenuus | 200 | ” |
In all these cases the wergeld of the Royal official or person in high rank is threefold that of the liber or ingenuus.[316]
Confirmed by comparison with the King’s mundbyrd.
Confining attention now to the position of the Kentish freeman, further confirmation of the view that his wergeld was 200 Kentish scillings may be derived from a comparison of the King’s mundbyrd with his wergeld, and the corresponding Continental payments pro fredo with the wergelds of the liber and ingenuus of the Continental laws.
The Kentish mundbyrd of 50 Kentish scillings was one fourth of the Kentish freeman’s wergeld if 200 Kentish scillings.
The Mercian mundbyrd of five pounds of silver was one fourth of the Mercian wergeld of 1200 scillings of four pence, or twenty pounds.
The Wessex mundbyrd of five pounds would be one fourth of the Wessex wergeld proper if the latter might be looked upon as the same as the Mercian with the mundbyrd added.[317]
The Alamannic and Bavarian payments pro fredo of 40 solidi were one fourth of the Alamannic and Bavarian wergeld of 160 solidi.
And Brunner[318] and others consider that, although the payment pro fredo was sometimes an extra payment, the 200 solidi of the Frankish wergeld equalled 160 solidi with one fourth added pro fredo.
Now, if instead of holding the Kentish freeman’s wergeld to be 200 Kentish scillings we were to take it to be the medume wergeld of 100 scillings, we should destroy the correspondence of the King’s mundbyrd with the wergeld, and make the mundbyrd half the wergeld instead of a quarter: unlike what it was in the other laws. This hardly seems a likely supposition.
And also with payment for eye, hand, and foot.
We get still further evidence if we compare the payments for the eye, hand, and foot in the Kentish and Continental laws. We have seen that the Kentish payment was 50 scillings, i.e. the same as the King’s mundbyrd and one fourth of the wergeld of 200 scillings. In the Alamannic and Bavarian laws and in those of the Chamavi the payment for these, like the payment pro fredo, was one quarter of the freeman’s wergeld. In the Frankish laws it was one half. But the reason of this is, not that either the Frankish payment pro fredo or the wergeld is less than in other laws, but that the payment for the eye, hand, and foot is greater. The Frankish payment for the eye, hand, or foot was 100 solidi of three tremisses, i.e. half as much again as the Kentish freeman’s wergeld would be if only 100 Kentish scillings of two tremisses; which again seems unlikely.
At first sight the Wessex payments for the eye, hand, and foot present an anomaly. The Wessex twelve-hynde wergeld of 1200 Wessex scillings of five pence at a ratio of 1:10 corresponds, as we have seen, with the Frankish freeman’s wergeld of 200 solidi. The payment for the eye, hand, and foot in King Alfred’s Laws is 66⅔ Wessex scillings, i.e. only one eighteenth of the twelve-hynde wergeld. But the explanation no doubt is that in the Laws of King Alfred the payments for injuries are stated for the twyhynde-man’s grade, those for the eye, hand, and foot being one third of the twyhyndeman’s wergeld of 200 Wessex scillings.
Kentish freeman’s wergeld most likely 200 Kentish scillings, or 4000 sceatts.
On the whole, therefore, these considerations seem to strengthen the supposition that the Kentish freeman’s wergeld was 200 Kentish scillings. That the Kentish wergeld should differ from that of Mercia and Wessex need not surprise us, seeing that we started with the warning that we should find it so as regards both the barones and villani. To the writer of the so-called Laws of Henry I. the eorl was no doubt the baro and the freeman or ceorl the villanus of Norman phraseology. And we need not wonder at his confusion if he had nothing but the laws to guide him. It is necessary, however, to look at the question of the wergelds from a broader point of view than his could be.
It must not be forgotten that the Continental wergelds of the Merovingian period were all stated in gold solidi. The first emigrants into Britain must have known this perfectly well. Kentish moneyers coined gold tremisses, and when they afterwards coined silver it was in silver tremisses of the same weight, which earned the name in England of ‘sceatts.’
Any exact comparison of English and Continental wergelds must obviously be dependent upon the ratio between gold and silver.
Archbishop Egbert’s priest’s wergeld also 4000 sceatts—i.e. 200 ounces of silver or Mina Italica of gold.
The Kentish scilling of two gold tremisses at 1:10 was reckoned in the Laws of Ethelbert as equal to 20 sceatts—i.e. to the Roman ounce—and the wergeld, if of 200 scillings, was thus, as we have seen, a wergeld in silver of 200 ounces or 4000 sceatts. We have seen also that Archbishop Egbert claimed for his priests a wergeld of 200 ounces of silver, which thus would accord exactly with the Kentish wergeld of 200 scillings. It might almost seem that he may have consulted his colleague the Archbishop of Canterbury and fixed his clerical demand in accordance with the Kentish wergeld rather than with that of Wessex or Mercia.
Nor was there anything unnatural or abnormal in the Kentish wergeld of 200 ounces of silver, inasmuch as 200 Roman ounces of silver at a ratio of 1:10 would equal the Mina Italica of twenty Roman ounces or of two ancient Roman pounds of gold.
We may therefore with confidence, but without claiming certainty, fairly state the Kentish wergelds in Kentish scillings and sceatts, thus:—
Kentish wergelds.
| Kentish scillings | Sceatts | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Eorl | 600 | (possibly 300?) | = | 12,000 |
| Freeman | 200 | (possibly 100?) | = | 4,000 |
| Læt (1) | 80 | = | 1,600 | |
| ” (2) | 60 | = | 1,200 | |
| ” (3) | 40 | = | 800 | |
And when put together in this way the proportion between the wergeld of the freeman and that of the læts becomes important. In the Norse laws the leysing’s wergeld was one sixth that of the hauld or odalman. In the Bavarian and Saxon laws the wergeld of the litus was one fourth that of the freeman. Anything like these proportions in Kent would make a wergeld as low as 100 scillings for the freeman very improbable.
The sceatts could not have been farthings.
Lastly, perhaps it may be fair to the reader to recur once more to the question of the Kentish scilling. If any doubt should remain as to whether we are right in regarding the sceatt as the silver coin of that name, twenty of which went to the Roman ounce until it was superseded by the penny of Offa and Alfred, surely that doubt must now be dispelled. For if, according to the view of Schmid and others, the sceatt were to be taken as a farthing or quarter of a sceatt, the correspondence of Kentish with Continental wergelds and payments pro fredo would be altogether destroyed. The eorl’s triple wergeld at a ratio of 1:10 would be only one sixth (and if 300 scillings only one twelfth) of that of the Frankish noble or official, while the Kentish freeman’s wergeld would be reduced to one sixth (or if 100 scillings to only one twelfth) of that of the Continental liber or ingenuus.
One perhaps must not say that such a result would be impossible. But would it be a likely one? We should have to suppose that the Jutish chieftain, perfectly familiar with the Continental wergeld of the freeman as 200 or 160 gold solidi, equated by long tradition with the round number of 100 head of cattle, upon settlement in Kent reduced the wergeld of the freeman to one sixth or one twelfth of what it was in the country he came from. From what we know of the tenacity of tribal custom everywhere, especially as regards the amount of the wergelds, it is difficult to conceive of his doing so.