Weregild (Alternative spellings: wergild, wergeld, weregeld, etc.) was a reparational payment usually demanded of a person guilty of homicide, although it could also be demanded in other cases of serious crime. The payment of weregild was an important legal mechanism in early northern European societies, such as those of the Vikings, and Anglo-Saxons; the other common form of legal reparation at this time was blood revenge. The payment was typically made to the family or to the clan. The word means, literally, "man price".
The size of the weregild in cases of murder was largely conditional upon the social rank of the victim. Thralls and slaves technically commanded no weregild, however it was commonplace to make a nominal payment in the case of a thrall and the value of the slave in such a case.
Weregild was also known to the Celts, who called it ericfine. Other cultures had similar customs e.g. the Slavonic glowczyzna.
Wergild is a Nordic term for blood-money, or a sum that is paid to a victim or the victim's surviving relatives in reparation for a crime.
The mindset behind the wergild system was, in part, that all kinsfolk are responsible for their own; an offender offends not only against an individual but against a family, and punishment is meted not only against the offender but against the offender's family.
Once the wergild is paid, the victim or the victim's family may no longer seek revenge against the offender or the offender's kin—wergild can be understood in part as a nonviolent form of settling disputes that might otherwise tear a close-knit society apart.
Wergild was an important concept, for without it all feuds were settled "eye for an eye": If you killed my kinsman, I killed your kinsman.
Wergild, the notion of a cash valuation for each person's life, allowed the ruling noble to command that grievances be redressed not by violence but by silver or gold payments, thus limiting the escalation of vendetta.
All persons (save slaves) had a wergild, and Ælfred's laws spell out reparations for the loss of bodily parts as well, even unto the loss of the little fingernail (one shilling fine).
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