HIST-102 Lecture Notes - Lecture 28: Alemanni, Weregild
9 Oct 2020
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Document Summary
The wergeld system differed from tribe to tribe in its specifics but was characteristic of them all. Wergeld was not as primitive as it sounds; our modern personal-injury in- surance policies are based on exactly the same idea. The germans pieced together their ways of regulating behavior in a step-by-step fashion, taking each situation as it arose and coming to some sort of group consensus about it. Once a conflict had been re- solved, it served as a precedent for resolving future situations that fit the same circumstances. The fact that few conflicts share all circumstances in their entirety explains the baroque proliferation of statutes regarding everything from assault to adultery, from the theft of pigs to the plundering of corpses. In fact, germanic custom regarded women as legal minors regardless of their age, under the permanent guardianship of their fathers and husbands.
