In all these cases the fines are reckoned in a unit of VII. ancillæ or the half of it. The cutting off of the hand of the criminal is reckoned as equal to half of VII. ancillæ. The VII. ancillæ is the recognised unit.
When, in other clauses, dealing with the case of the same things done to a priest, a lesser punishment is decreed, still the price of VII. ancillæ is the price of the life of the criminal. If the blood of a priest is shed and reaches the ground, donec colorium subfert, the hand of the criminal is to be cut off, or half of VII. ancillæ to be paid, if the act be intentional. If not intentional, the price of one ancilla is enough.
In title IV., Dejectione, after a clause stating that he who ejects a poor man kills him, and he who meets a person ready to perish and does not succour him kills him, there follows this clause:—
Si quis jecerit episcopum et si mortuus fuerit, accipiatur ab eo pretium sanguinis ejus L. ancillas reddit, id est VII. ancillas uniuscujusque gradus vel l. annis peniteat et ex his accipiuntur VII. ancille de jectione ejus.
If any one ejects a bishop and if he should be dead, let there be received for him the price of his blood, let him render fifty ancillæ, i.e. seven ancillæ for each grade of rank, or do penance fifty years, and from these shall be received seven ancillæ de jectione ejus.[87]
‘Pretium sanguinis’ seven ancillæ.
Here the ordinary ‘pretium sanguinis’ or coirp-dire is again clearly reckoned at VII. ancillæ, and the bishop, being of the seventh grade of rank in the ecclesiastical hierarchy, is to be paid for sevenfold.
It is also worth notice that in these clauses the cutting off of a hand is reckoned as half of the ‘pretium sanguinis.’ This is in full accordance with the Brehon rule laid down in the ‘Book of Aicill’ (iii. p. 349).
Half the eric-fine of every person is to be paid for a foot, a hand, an eye, a tongue.
But inasmuch as the ‘eric-fine’ in this case might be taken by mistake to include the honour-price as well as the coirp-dire, the commentary adds:—