The one-year-old bullock of either sex in autumn, as it is sent into the stable, for 1 solidus. Likewise in spring, when it leaves the stable, and afterwards as it grows in age, so its price increases. De annona bortrinis let them give for a solidus 40 scapili, and of rye 20.
Septentrionales for a solidus, of oats 30 scapili, of rye 15.
Bortrensi 1½ sicla of honey for a solidus. Septentrionales 2 sicla of honey for a solidus; also of clean barley they give the same as of rye for a solidus.
In silver let them make twelve pence the solidus. (In argento duodecim denarios solidum faciant.) In other things at the price of estimation.
So that in this Capitulare of A.D. 797, issued just before Charlemagne became Emperor, there is the clear statement that the one-year-old bullock is still to be reckoned as one solidus, and the further statement that in silver 12 pence make the solidus. And this in a clause headed with the words: ‘Moreover it is to be noted what the solidi of the Saxons ought to be.’
The fact therefore seems to be that these Capitularies relating to the Saxons, and the Lex Saxonum, following upon the Conquest of the Saxons, date from the middle of the time when the change in the currency from gold to silver was taking place, and the silver solidus of 12 pence, first of Merovingian standard and ultimately of the nova moneta, was by law made equivalent for payments to the gold solidus of the Lex Salica of three gold tremisses or of 40 pence.
Now, having derived this information from the Capitularies, let us turn back to the laws.
Destruction of eye &c. paid for with a half wergeld.
In Tit. I. De vulneribus, the penalty for destroying another’s eye is 720 solidi, exactly half the number of solidi in the wergeld of the nobilis, and for both eyes 1,440 solidi—i.e. exactly the amount of the whole wergeld of the nobilis. These proportions are found in several other laws, and were quite natural if the payments were made in both cases in the same solidi. But these wounds ought, according to the final clause in the law, to have been paid for in the solidus of three tremisses, while the wergelds should have been paid in solidi of two tremisses.