\ 



V 



78 



(by Tigernach called the great lawgiver,) introduced in the year 164, 

 the law of retaliation and the satisfaction of crimes by mulcts, called 

 ^rics, which were appreciated, like the tributes, by heifers and other 

 cattle,* Much has been said against this dispensation; yet, after all, 

 perhaps it was a better system to spare blood even in cases of the 

 greatest offences, than to shed it for the smallest. -f- It had at least 

 been familiarized by the use of the Anglo Saxons, as appears from the 

 text of King Athelstan's laws, (Chap, de diversis occisorum sanguinis 

 pretiis, where the several were-gilds for homicide are established in 

 progressive order, from the slaying of the ceorl, or peasant, up to that 

 of the king himself ;) by the Welch, as appears from Howell Dhu's 

 Leges Walliae; by the Salic law (Leg. Sal. tits. 44 and 47, citante 

 Vallancey, Coll. de Reb. Hib. vol. 1. p. 405,) as also by the Ripua- 

 rians and Frisones, (citante Vallancey,) and Tacitus says, the custom 

 was the same amongst the Germans, though he only mentions its use 

 as in minor offences. |. Even Homer, in his description of the shield of 

 Achilles, represents two citizens pleading concerning an eric or mulct 

 due for a homicide, and it is one of the rays that halo the memory of 

 Alfred, that in his day the fine for the murder of a Dane was the 

 same as for the murder of an Englishman. § 



* Ledivich's Antiquities, p. 216. f SeeO'Conor's Dissert, p. 48. 



3: " Levioribus delictis pro modo poenarum equorum pecorumque numero convicti mulc- 

 tantur; pars mulctse regi vel civitati, pars ipsi qui vindicatur vel propinquis ejus exsolvitur." — 

 De Moribus Germanorum. 



§ See Hume's England, vol. i. app. 1. 



