Kings Peace and English Peace-Magistracy. 21 



room for an oath on behalf of the dead man, that his kindred 

 may exculpate him " ; ^ or even that he shall formally accuse 

 the body of the dead in open court, in order to facilitate the 

 peaceful establishment of his own innocence.^ In like spirit 

 the Lex Ripnaria provides that the man who commits a justi- 

 fiable homicide shall publicly expose the body and watch it 

 for a certain number of days, to see if the kindred of the slain 

 will come to challenge him for the deed.^ So also the state 

 strove in various ways to render the degree of vengeance 

 commensurate with the offence. For example, the exact 

 words which shall be regarded as mortal insults are enumer- 

 ated in the statutes ;* a blow may be avenged, so long as the 

 mark of it remains ; ^ the thief or the ravisher, surprised in 

 the act, may be slain on the spot ; but if the blood of the 

 aggrieved have time to cool, then he may only seize and bind 

 the malefactor and carry him before the court for trial.*^ In 

 the North, says Grimm, if a violent house-breaker be slain 

 in the act, his death remains without compensation, provided 

 the feet of the corpse fall within and the head without the 

 house-yard (hofzaun) ; but, on the contrary, if the feet fall 

 without and the head within, then the slayer is responsible 

 for the blood-money. '' Another Scandinavian law makes the 

 slayer liable for a special fine, if at the first meeting of .the 

 court (ding) after the event, he provoke the wrath of his 

 adversary by tendering the wergeld in a voice loud enough 

 to be heard throughout the entire assembly ; while a similar 



line, 21: Thorpe, Ancient Laws, I, 1 17. Cf. also Ine, 35: Thorpe, Anc. 

 Laws, I, 125. The Gragas requires that public announcement shall be made 

 even when an outlaw — IValdgangei- — is slain: "\N\\d2i, Strafrecht, 159, 162-3. 



2 Sachsse's Safhsenspiegel, I, art. 69, p. 1 14: "We ok enen doden man. oder 

 enen gewundeden man geuangenen uor gerichte uort. unde ene to eneme urede- 

 brekere bereden wil mit kamp. oder ane kamp. en beredet he sin nicht. men seal 

 ouer ene richten na uredes rechte." Cf. the extracts from the Scandinavian 

 codes in Wilda, Strafrecht, 163. 



^ Lex Ripuaria, Tit. LXXVII: Walter, Corpus Juris Germ., I, 190. Cf. 

 Wilda, Strafrecht, 159. * Wilda, Strafrecht, 161. 



!5 Wilda, Strafrecht, 161. ^ lb., 1 65-6. 



'' Grimm, Rechlsalterthilmcr, 628. See similar examples in Wilda, Strafrecht, 

 165. 



