Under Frankish law the Gallo-Romans had half-wergelds.
Now, we have seen that under Frankish laws the Gallo-Roman population living under Roman law had half-wergelds. If the freeman living under Salic law had a wergeld of 200 solidi the ‘Romanus possessor’ had a wergeld of 100 solidi. And so in the same way, returning to the Laws of Ine, while the gesithcund or other landed Wessex freeman was a twelve-hyndeman, the wealh who had five hides was reckoned as six-hynde.
The wealh with five hides had a half-wergeld.
We have seen that the English ceorl who rose to the possession of five hides and paid gafol to the king, and with coat of mail and over-gilded sword followed to the fyrd, became gesithcund with a wergeld of 1200 scillings. It is quite in accordance with tribal feeling as shown in Continental usage that the stranger in blood, whether Welsh or Romano-British, who had risen in the same way to the possession or occupation of five hides should be six-hynde with a half-wergeld of 600 scillings.
We have quoted the Northumbrian Priest-law and noted that its penalties in half-marks and ores suggest that it belongs to the period before King Alfred’s Compact with Guthrum, during which York was the capital of the Northmen’s kingdom. It is interesting to see that in the fragment of North People’s Law quoted in the previous chapter, belonging probably to the same district and to the same period, some of the clauses with reference to the Wilisc man are evidently copied from the Laws of Ine though with some additional matter and perhaps some slight errors in the figures.
And if a Wilisc-man thrive so that he have a hide of land and can bring forth the King’s gafol, then is his wergeld 120 scillings. And if he thrive not except to half a hide, then let his wer be 80 scillings. And if he have not any land, let him be paid for with 70 scillings [? 60].
The conquering Northmen gave the hauld a wergeld twice that of the thane.
And it is worth notice that it was in this very document that the Northmen as conquerors, while leaving the English wergeld of the thane at 2000 thrymsas or 1200 scillings, gave to their own ‘hold’ a double wergeld of 4000 thrymsas.
The six-hynde class died out.
We may therefore regard the six-hyndeman of King Ine and King Alfred’s Laws as probably the Wilisc man with five hides or more. There does not appear to be anything in King Alfred’s Laws to lead us away from this conclusion. Any other would leave the complete silence of King Alfred’s laws with regard to the Wilisc class unexplained, unless it could be considered that in the turmoil of the Northmen’s invasions and the stress of war the Wilisc class had already become more or less amalgamated with the Saxon population by the force of their common interests against the invaders.