Gerald Bosch wrote:
...
> Bob the Carl may want to kill someone,
> but he probably can't pay the wergild out of his own pocket and thus
> needs to consider the possibility that the clan might not pony up the
> cash if the clan ring doesn't think Bob acted properly. There is a
> great deal of role-playing potential in this situation...
...
Agreed. But the wealth of a carl has to be of the same order of magnitude as a carl's wergild, otherwise the carl himself will be paying only a tiny fraction of the wergild, which is hardly likely to make wergild a personal deterrant or alternative to blood feud.
Also, by 'the clan' paying the wergild I assume you mean the carls of the clan in the bloodline of the offender. Again, if that pooled wealth is to be sufficient for paying wergild (and it MUST be), then the wergild of a carl can not be vastly greater than the wealth of a carl. And if by 'the clan' you mean all the carls of the clan, then isn't it in the interests of all the clan carls to ensure that each carl recruit comes with enough wealth to offset the increased risk of wergild payments such a recruit brings with them? Doesn't having a suitably large wealth requirement do this?
If the wergild of a carl is very much larger than the wealth of a carl (either by having large wergilds or poor carls), then as you say, carls will have to seek the patronage of much wealthier men. Such patronage has a price: in effect, the carl becomes a vassal of the wealthier man (the carl's freedom is the only thing he has left to sell). I suggest that vastly expensive wergilds or pauper carls diminish the freedom of the carls, and so are incompatible with Heortling carl freedom as we understand it in Sartar.
Of course, down south in Heortland, things could be different.
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