1 6 Geo7'o-e E. Hoivard. 



Speaking broadly, throughout the entire German world, 

 when history dawns, the state or volksvcrband has already 

 gained the acceptance of her intervention in clan disputes. 

 In practice, if not in theory, the unrestricted blood-feud is 

 extinct. In its place, we find a vast system of compositions 

 and penalties which the clan is allowed to administer, but 

 under some restraint, however feeble, of a law superior to her 

 own.i A new morality, a higher ethics, is beginning to trans- 

 form the popular conception of the peace. Private vengeance 

 is slowly assuming the character of public vengeance.^ Here 

 and there the wronged party may still be entitled to self- 

 redress ; but, if he appeal to the state, he may exercise the 

 right only when the blood-money is not paid by the trans- 

 gressor in accordance with her decree.^ These generalizations 



Thudichum, Der altd. Staat, 35; Walter, Deutsche Rechtsgcschichte, I, 17-20; 

 Laveleye, Primitive Property, 105-6; Hanssen, Agrarhist. Abhandl., 87; Dahn, 

 Urgeschichte, 103-4; Arnold, Deutsche Urzeit, 340; Kemble, Saxojis, I, 56 ff.; 

 Inama-Sternegg, Deutsche Wirthschaftsgeschichte, 73 ff.; Wilda, Z*;?^ Strafrecht der 

 Ger??ianeii, 125 ff. 



1 Thus Tacitus, Germania, c. 21, describes the feud and compositions: " Sus- 

 cipere tarn inimicitias, seu patris, seu propinqui, quam amicitias, necesse est: nee 

 implacabiles durant. Luitur enim etiam homicidium certo armentorum ac pecorum 

 numero, recipitque satisfactionem universa domus : utiliter in publicum; quia 

 periculosiores sunt inimicitiae juxta libertatem." 



2 Wilda, Strafrecht, 167, 189. 



^ In the earliest English laws acceptance of the wergeld, when tendered, seems 

 to have been obligatory. Opinions differ as to the earliest Teutonic usage. Thus 

 Siegel, Geschichte des deutschen Gerichtsverfahrens, 9 ff , holds that choice between 

 the feud and judicial action for recovery of the wergeld rested wholly with the 

 aggrieved. Rogge, Das Gerichtswesen der Germanen, 5-7, 19-25, likewise main- 

 tains that the wronged party might take the law into his own hands; but if redress 

 were sought through process of law, then choice between payment of the wergeld 

 and the feud belonged wholly to the transgressor : the court could not enforce the 

 payment of composition. On the other hand Wilda, the principal authority on 

 early criminal law, declares that the private (clan) feud was practically extinct. 

 His great work is an elaborate defence of the relatively high development of the 

 peace-jurisdiction of the primitive Germanic state. See Strafrecht, 160 ff., 189, 

 184 ff., 197. Substantially in agreement with Wilda are Wachter, Z?fzVr%-i? zur 

 deutschen Geschichte, \\'&.; '^3.\iz,Dasalte Recht,iS$-^; lb., Verfassungsgeschichte, 

 I, 70 ff., IV, 431 ff.; and Dahn, Deutsche Geschichte, I, 227-40, particularly p. 238, 

 tliough he is more conservative respecting the early victory of the state over the 

 clan. The provisions relating to the feud and compositions in each of the codes 



250 



