CHAPTER XLIIL 



OUTLAWRY. 



Irredeemable crimes Outlaws regarded as enemies of society Custom of 

 pleading for an outlaw Liabilities of a murderess Substitution of 

 corporal punishment and fines for outlawry Purchase of an outlaw's 

 peace. 



THE laws did not aspire to improve the moral condition of 

 the criminal and try to make him a better man, except through 

 fear of punishment ; their object in early days was to prevent 

 private revenge, and stop people taking matters into their own 

 hands. Crimes against personal rights or those of property 

 were punished by fines as indemnity to the injured. By paying 

 an indemnity the criminal released himself from the revenge of 

 the injured and of his family, or from the outlawry which his 

 conduct or crime had brought upon him. 



If any man had wronged another he was placed outside the 

 pale of the law until the weregild was paid ; and if he or his 

 family could not pay he was outlawed, and the outlawry was 

 declared at all the Things in the country. 1 



There were crimes called Ubota-mal (irredeemable crimes), 

 that is, for which no weregild could be paid ; they were punished 

 by outlawry and loss of all property, including the odal, which 

 was the greatest punishment that could be inflicted. Such 

 crimes were the violation of the sanctity of the temple or of 

 the Thing-place, and secret or unprovoked murder. From the 

 old laws of Norway we find that a man was called Ubota-man 

 who could not redeem himself. 



1. " If a man attacks another in his house and breaks the 

 house and slays him, that is called nitliing -slay ing. 2. It is a 

 miking -slaying if a man slays the one to whom he has given 



Cf. Sigurd Jdrsalafari, Heimskringla, c. 20-21. 



