wergeld

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Old English werġeld, wereġeld (“compensation for a man killed”), from Proto-West Germanic *werageld. More at wer, geld.

noun

1. (historical, especially in Germanic law) Blood money, the monetary value assigned to a person, set according to their rank, used to determine the compensation paid by the perpetrator of a crime to the victim in the case of injury or to the victim's kindred in the case of homicide, distinct from bloodwite.
   In its opening article the equality of the wergeld of a Novgorodian Slav with that of a Kievan Russian is proclaimed. 1973, George Vernadsky, Kievan Russia
   In these clauses a lord had the duty of yielding up his esne if he was guilty of homicide and paying the dead man's wergeld. If the esne escaped, his lord had then to pay the value of a further man (that is, one hundred shillings), which was a ceorl's wergeld and may well have been the value of an esne as well. 1995, David Anthony Edgell Pelteret, Slavery in Early Mediaeval England: From the Reign of Alfred Until the Twelfth Century
2. (historical, especially in Germanic law) Compensation thus determined and paid; a reparative payment.
   Isildur would not surrender [The Ruling Ring] to Elrond and Círdan who stood by. … ‘This I will have as weregild for my father's death, and my brother's. Was it not I that dealt the Enemy his death-blow?’ 1977, J.R.R. Tolkien, Of the Rings of Power, HarperCollins, pages 353–354
   The folklaw set a price on every person's head and this price was easily converted into oath equivalents: if the wergeld to be paid for killing a churl was 200 shillings, for killing a thegn 1200 shillings, and for killing a king 7,200 shillings, then it follows that for a churl to sue a thegn he would need five other 200-shilling men prepared to swear alongside him, and to sue a king, thirty-five others. 2002, Richard Firth Green, A Crisis of Truth: Literature and Law in Ricardian England