Page:The history of medieval Europe.djvu/88

 52 THE HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL EUROPE and his property was divided between his king and his kin. Women could not be outlawed because they were not directly under the protection of the law in the first place, but under the care of their fathers, husbands, or kindred. Outlawry was also the penalty for those crimes considered the most heinous. Killing a man, however, was not then esteemed so serious an offense as now, and could usually be atoned for by pay- Wergeld ing the Sib of the dead man the amount of his and feud Wergeld, which varied in value as he was a noble, freeman, or freedman. If one killed a slave, one simply paid his master damages. This practice of compensation largely replaced the older custom of feud by which the Sib of the dead man tried to get open revenge upon the slayer or any other member of his kinship group. In general it may be affirmed that all free members of the tribe who were not still under paternal authority had equal German law rights before the law, except that nobles were personal protected by a larger Wergeld and that their oaths carried more weight in court. The Germans had no testa- mentary law because they made no wills. A man's property was inherited by his children or other relations according to rules fixed by custom. Their real-estate law was not at all complex because their agricultural life was as yet so simple. Of the law of partnership, sales, contracts, and other busi- ness relations they had still less knowledge. In short, their law was largely personal. Each tribe, of course, had its own customs or laws, which differed considerably from those of other peoples. It should be added, however, that while German law, taken as a whole, was incomplete, crude, and harsh, com- G rmans pared -to the fine humane system which had compared to grown up in the Roman world, it was, on the Romans Qther ^^ much ^ ^ ^ with which the early Roman farmers had been contented in their little settlement on the Tiber. Indeed, the Germans were not so unlike the people within the Empire as they at first sight seemed. The Greeks and Latins themselves had been pro-