VII. THE METHODS OF TREATMENT OF STRANGERS OR NON-TRIBESMEN.
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]
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?
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]
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:—
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, and his family 180 |
| The uchelwr | 120 | ” | |
| 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 | ” |
CHAPTER III.
THE EVIDENCE OF BEOWULF ON TRIBAL CUSTOM REGULATING FEUDS &c.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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
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 (2) Wægmund { { who fled to { { Hrothgar { Wihstan-----------Wiglaf
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).
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.
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.
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.
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).
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).
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).
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.
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!’
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!
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.