Читать книгу A Source Book for Mediæval History - Oliver J. Thatcher - Страница 12

1. If anyone is convicted of killing a free Frank or a barbarian living by the Salic law, he shall pay 8,000 denarii, which make 200 solidi.

2. If he has put the body in a well, or under water, or has covered it with branches or other things for the purpose of hiding it, he shall pay 24,000 denarii, which make 600 solidi.{13}

3. If anyone kills a man in the king’s trust, or a free woman, he shall pay 24,000 denarii, which make 600 solidi.

4. If he kills a Roman who was a table-companion of the king, he shall pay 12,000 denarii, which make 300 solidi.

6. If the slain man was a Roman landowner, and not a table-companion of the king, he who slew him shall pay 4,000 denarii, which make 100 solidi.

7. If anyone kills a Roman tributarius, he shall pay 63 solidi.

{12} The fine for slaying a man is the wergeld referred to in the introduction. It was paid to the kin of the slain man by the slayer or his kin. The wergeld has different values for different classes; note the classes in the Salic law, particularly the position of the persons in the royal service, the importance of which must have been of comparatively recent origin, and the position of the Roman population. The freeman of the Frankish tribe has a wergeld of 200 solidi, the free woman three times that, 600 solidi; the Roman possessor, or free landowner, 100 solidi; the Roman tributarius, who cultivated the land of another at a fixed rent, and was regarded as less than a freeman, 62½ solidi. If the freeman was in the king’s trust, that is, in the service of the king and probably bound to him by a special oath (these men are also called antrustiones; see nos. 180 and 189), his wergeld was three times that of the ordinary freeman, 600 solidi; that of the Roman who was a table-companion of the king, a relation similar to that of the man in the king’s trust, was also tripled, 300 solidi.

{13} The fact of concealment is the distinguishing mark between murder and manslaughter.