>> > I've always assumed that among the Orlanthi (both Ralian and
>> > Heortling), a bloodline is responsible for paying wergild.
>>
>>I think at least _de jure_, it's the entire clan.
David Dunham wrote
>I disagree. If this were the case, then no killing within a clan
>could be solved with wergild. And since the clan is the basic unit of
>Orlanthi society, justice must work at the clan level.
Looking at the Celtic position on weregeld or cro (my source is "Cattle Lords and Clansmen" by Nerys Patterson) wergild was paid by the fine or "seventeen men" - that is kin out to the extent of 5th cousin horizontally and grandfather vertically in an agnatic (reckoned through males only) kin group. The closest kin (the gelfhine or "the five men" that is kin out to 1st cousin) were first called upon to pay the wergeld, but if this would have reduced them to poverty the obligation passed further out. Of course the other alternative available to the kin was to hand over the offender in slavery in place of the weregeld, which would have been an important check on members of the fine bankrupting the rest of the group. Weregeld payments were received by the kin of he deceased in the following fashion: father and son (half), Father's brother and son (i.e. your cousins) a quarter. The remaining quarter divided into three parts and distributed to these in outside the gelfhine.
Note that this was compensated for by the fact that inheritance of personal property. if a gelfhine died out then the property was not distributed amongst immediate kin, but the fine as a whole.
The distribution of weregeld by this method forced the kin to act as watchmen over each other's activities.
My Anglo-Saxon sources are not as good. One of my best is D Whitelock "The beginnings of English Society" which states that "homicide [was] the affair of the kindred". Anglo-Saxon society was bilateral (recognised kinship as being through male and female lines) and the responsibility for weregeld payment fell two-thirds on patrilineal kin and one third on matrilineal kin, and was received in similiar proportion.
Legally of course, someone had to be proved guilty before compensation was exacted, but remember that in both Celtic and Germanic societies murder a crime for which one could be killed without your slayer having to pay weregeld (along with theft and other capital crimes), so there was an incentive to own up (rape however was not a capital crime in all the law codes of Germanic/Celtic peoples).
Within a kindred group I infer (don't have a source to hand for this) that criminal matters of one against the other were settled internally by the kin themselves, who could come up with whatever punishment was appropriate. One of the ultimate sanctions was of course outlawry which was the refusal to pay wergild for you, allowing you to be killed or enslaved by others with impunity.
Hope this helps,
Ian
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