8 George E. Howard, 



the principal Aryan peoples, but particularly as it is revealed 

 in our old English laws. 



{b). — The Wergcld and Arbitration} 



The first important encroachment upon the domain of the 

 blood-feud was through the institution of the wergeld ^ and 

 the resort to arbitration. And, though it is hazardous to 

 speculate on a subject where so little is known, still it is 

 natural to suppose that arbitration was first employed, volun- 

 tarily and occasionally, as a means of settling inter-clan dis- 

 putes. Be this as it may, at the very beginning of positive 

 history, the state is everywhere found engaged in elaborating 

 a fixed tariff of compositions whose acceptance she endeavors 

 to enforce. The original measure of the wergeld was the 

 degree of anger, the state of mind, of the party entitled to 

 vengeance.^ " It was not the amount of injury that was sus- 

 tained, much less the amount likely to prevent the recurrence 

 of the offence. It was simply the lowest sum that, upon the 

 whole, it was likely the aggrieved party would accept."* 

 Everywhere the system of compositions shows traces of this 

 original standard of measurement. For example, a thief 

 taken in the act might be killed by the captor ; but one sub- 

 sequently apprehended, though guilty of a tenfold greater 

 offence, had many chances for escape through the clumsy 

 judicial procedure of primitive times. This is verified by 

 the Saxon laws, though the difference in the severity of 

 the punishment of the thief pursued and captured on the 

 occasion of the theft, as compared with that of one taken 



1 An interesting chapter on the " Evolution of Peace " may be found in Law- 

 rence, Essays on Mode7-n International War, pp. 234-277. According to his 

 view the final phase of development will consist in the superseding of international 

 war by international peace. In general, see also Maine, Ancient Law, chap. X; 

 lb., Early History of Institutions, chaps. IX, X, XII, XIII; Hearn, Aryan House- 

 hold, chaps. XIX, XX. 



2 Wergeld = man-money. See Wilda, Strafrecht, 319; Grimm, Rechtsalterthil- 

 vter, 650-3; Walter, Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte, I, 17; Leist, Alt-Arisches Jiis 

 Gejitium, 296-7. 



2 Cf. Maine, Ancient laiv, 365-7. * Hearn, Aryan Household, 439. 



242 



