neighbours,
twelve in general, who will swear their belief in his innocence. This
was common to the northern nations, and was the origin of our trial by
jury. If guilty, the offender has to pay the weregeld, or legal price,
set upon the injury he has inflicted. When the composition is paid,
there is an end of the feud; if after taking the composition the
plaintiff avenges himself, he has to pay it back. Hence our system of
fines.

This method of composition by fines runs through all the Teutonic laws;
and makes the punishment of death, at least among freemen, very rare.

Punishments by stripes, by imprisonment, or by cruel or degrading
methods, there are none. The person of a freeman is sacred, 'Vincire et
verberare nefas,' as Tacitus said of these Germans 600 years before.

The offences absolutely punishable by death seem to be, treason against
the king's life; cowardice in battle; concealment of robbers; mutinies
and attempts to escape out of the realm; and therefore (under the then
military organization) to escape from the duty of every freeman, to bear
arms in defence of the land.

More than a hundred of these laws define the different fines, or
'weregelds,' by which each offence is to be compounded for, from 900
solidi aurei, gold pieces, for a murder, downwards to the smallest breach
of the peace. Each limb has its special price. For the loss of an eye,
half the price of the whole man is to be paid. A front tooth is worth
16s., solidi aurei; their loss being a disfigurement; but a back tooth is
worth only 8s. A slave's tooth, on the other hand, is worth but 4s.; and
in every case, the weregeld of a slave is much less than that of a
freeman.

The sacredness of the household, and the strong sense of the individual
rights of property, are to be remarked. One found in a 'court,'
courtledge (or homestead), by night (as we say in old English), may be
killed. You know, I dare say, that in many Teutonic and Scandinavian
nations the principle that a man's house is his castle was so strongly
held that men were not allowed to enter a condemned man's house to carry
him off to execution; but if he would not come out, could only burn the
house over his head. Shooting, or throwing a lance into any man's
homestead, costs 20s. 'Oberos,' or 'curtis ruptura,' that is, making
violent entry into a man's homestead, costs 20s. also. Nay, merely to
fetch your own goods out of another man's house secretly, and without