he death or
injury of a member, the magistrate had acquired a right of interposing
in the quarrel, and of accommodating the difference. He obliged the
person maimed or injured, and the relations of one killed, to accept of
a present from the aggressor and his relations,[**] as a compensation
for the injury.[***] and to drop all farther prosecution of revenge.
That the accommodation of one quarrel might not be the source of more,
this present was fixed and certain according to the rank of the person
killed or injured, and was commonly paid in cattle, the chief property
of those rude and uncultivated nations.

[* LL. Fris. tit. 2, apud Lindenbrog. p. 491.]

[** LL. AEthelb, sect. 23. LL. AElf. sect. 27]

[*** Called by the Saxons "maegbota."]

A present of this kind gratified the revenge of the injured family by
the loss which the aggressor suffered: it satisfied then pride by the
submission which it expressed: it diminished their regret for the loss
or injury of a kinsman by their acquisition of new property; and thus
general peace was for a moment restored to the society.[*]

But when the German nations had been settled some time in the provinces
of the Roman empire, they made still another step towards a more
cultivated life, and their criminal justice gradually improved and
refined itself. The magistrate, whose office it was to guard public
peace, and to suppress private animosities, conceived himself to be
injured by every injury done to any of his people; and besides the
compensation to the person who suffered, or to his family, he thought
himself entitled to exact a fine, called the "fridwit," as an atonement
for the breach of peace, and as a reward for the pains which he had
taken in accommodating the quarrel. When this idea, which is so natural,
was once suggested, it was willingly received both by sovereign and
people. The numerous fines which were levied, augmented the revenue of
the king; and the people were sensible that he would be more vigilant
in interposing with his good offices, when he reaped such immediate
advantage from them; and that injuries would be less frequent, when,
besides compensation to the person injured, that they were exposed to
this additional penalty.[**]

[* Tacit, de Mor. Germ. The author says, that the
price of the composition was fixed; which must have been by
the laws, and the interposition of the magistrates.]

[** Besides paying money to