If he cannot recall him let him pay for him with a wergeld to the parentes. That is twice 80 solidi if he leave an heir. But if he does not leave an heir let him compound with 200 solidi.
The explanation must be that if the lost kinsman leaves no heir, the loss is all the greater to the kindred. This looks like a survival of tribal custom. The dread of a family dying out lay, as we have seen, at the root of the widespread custom which brought in the sister’s son to fill the vacant place when there was no one else to keep up the family. This addition in the later statement, though omitted in the ‘Pactus,’ pointing back as it appears to earlier custom, seems to show that the Lex as well as the ‘Pactus’ may in the matter of wergeld be traced to Alamannic rather than Frankish sources.
Wergeld of women.
In both the ‘Pactus’ and the Lex, as we have seen, the wergelds of women were double those of men. The Bavarian law gives the reason of the rule (IV. 29) and also the reason why sometimes an exception was made to the rule.
Whilst a woman is unable to defend herself by arms, let her receive a double composition; if, however, in the boldness of her heart, like a man, she chooses to fight, her composition shall not be double.
In titles XXIX. and XXX. of the Alamannic law it is enacted that if a man be slain in the curtis of the Dux a threefold wergeld must be paid, and that if the messenger of the Dux be killed within the province his triple wergeld must be paid.
The freeman’s wergeld of 160 solidi under Bavarian law.
In the Bavarian law the wergeld of the freeman is stated to be 160 solidi, thus:—
If any one kill a free man (‘liberum hominem’) let there be paid to his parentes, if he have any, or if he have no parentes to the Dux or to him to whom he was commended whilst he lived, twice 80 solidi: that is, 160 solidi. (Tit. IV. c. 28.)
There are no wergelds mentioned in the Bavarian law corresponding to those of the medius Alamannus and the primus Alamannus of the Alamannic laws.