CHAPTER I.

_THE CURRENCY IN WHICH WERGELDS WERE RECKONED AND PAID._

I. CONNECTION BETWEEN THE WERGELD OF 100 HEAD OF CATTLE AND THE MINA OF 100 GOLD STATERS.

[Sidenote: The currencies in which wergelds were paid.]

The inquiry pursued in this volume partakes so much of the character of a study of the wergelds of the various tribes of North-western Europe that it becomes necessary as briefly as possible to call attention at the outset to the currencies in which they were reckoned and paid.

[Sidenote: Cows.]

The Cymric galanas or death fine was reckoned in cows, and the cows were equated with silver.

[Sidenote: Female slaves.]

The Irish ‘eric’ of the Brehon laws was stated in _cumhals_ or female slaves, and lesser payments in cows and heifers, and these were all equated with silver.

[Sidenote: Silver.]

The Anglo-Saxon wergelds were stated, with perhaps one exception, in silver scillings.

The wergelds of the Scandinavian tribes were generally stated in their laws in silver marks, ores, and ortugs, with the equivalent in gold at a ratio of 1:8, and also in cows.

[Sidenote: Gold solidi.]

Those of the Continental German tribes were generally stated in gold solidi, but the statements were sometimes supplemented by clauses describing the value of the animals, whether oxen or cows, in which the payments were, in practice, still evidently made, at the date of the laws.

[Sidenote: Early equation between cattle and gold.]

Professor Ridgeway[1] has shown that the equation between cattle and gold may go back a long way into the past of Eastern tradition. The result of his careful inquiry was the brilliant suggestion that the ox--the most usual unit of payment in agricultural countries--was very early and very generally equated in Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, and Greek usage with the gold stater or didrachma.

[Sidenote: Greek stater the ox-unit.]

The stater was reckoned in Greek usage as of 192 wheat-grains.[2] It was divided into 6 diobols of 32 wheat-grains. And throughout the East the usual multiples of the stater were the _light mina_ of 50 staters and the _heavy mina_ of 100 staters or 19,200 wheat-grains.[3]

Now if the gold stater of 192 wheat-grains is to be recognised as the ox-unit in traditional equations between cattle and gold, another very important recognition suggests itself.

[Sidenote: Normal wergelds of 100 head of cattle]

Wergelds being first paid in cattle, it was natural that a round number of cattle should be chosen, and instances are not wanting in the Eastern world suggesting that ‘a hundred head of cattle’ was a customary normal wergeld of wide prevalence.

Among the Arabs to this day Professor Robertson Smith states[4] that the camel is the unit of payment, and that, in a feud between two Meccan tribes, the manslayer has the alternative of paying 100 camels or bringing 50 of his kin to take oath of purgation, or lastly of abiding the blood-feud.

According to the laws of Manu, if one of the highest of the twice-born Brahman class slew one of the Warrior class involuntarily, he might cleanse himself by paying to the Brahmans or priests 1000 cows and a bull. If he slew one of the agricultural or trading class, the payment was 100 cows and a bull. If he slew one of the servile class, the payment was 10 cows and a bull.[5]

In this case 100 cows seem to have been the normal wergeld, and the wergelds of those of higher or lower caste or rank seem to have been multiples or fractions of it.

In Homer there are indications of the same thing. Lycaon was sold as a captive for 100 oxen and redeemed as a chieftain’s son for 300 oxen--being apparently valued at a threefold wergeld on account of his recognised princely rank.

Iliad, XXI. 39. ‘And at that time he sold him into well-peopled Lemnos, sending him on shipboard, and the son of Jason gave a price for him and thence a guest-friend freed him with a great ransom, Eetion of Imbros, and sent him to goodly Arisbe; whence flying secretly he came to his father’s house (at Troy). Eleven days he rejoiced among his friends after he was come from Lemnos, but on the twelfth once more God brought him into the hands of Achilles again.’

71. ‘Then Lykaon besought him.… At thy table first I tasted meal of Demeter on the day when thou didst take me captive in the well-ordered orchard, and didst sell me away from my father (Priam) and my friends unto goodly Lemnos, and _I fetched thee the price of an hundred oxen_. And now I have been ransomed _for thrice that_, and this is my twelfth morn since I came to Ilios after much pain.’

[Sidenote: The normal wergeld equated with the gold mina of 100 staters.]

Now if a herd of 100 head of cattle had come to be a common normal wergeld in the Eastern world, and if the gold stater had come to be regarded as the ox-unit, it follows that the heavy gold mina of 100 staters would easily come to be adopted as a common equivalent for the wergeld of 100 head of cattle.

Nor are we without examples which show that this connection of the wergeld with the gold mina was not altogether foreign to traditional modes of thought.

In the laws of Gortyn[6] a man whose life was forfeit for crime might be redeemed by his kindred for 100 staters, _i.e._ the heavy gold mina.

The ransom of prisoners between certain Greek tribes or states according to Herodotus was two minas, _i.e._ one heavy mina.[7]

There is a curious instance in the Mosaic law of the connection of something like a wergeld with the mina of silver. In the last chapter of Leviticus the price to be paid for the redemption of a man dedicated by a vow to the service of the Sanctuary was 50 shekels of silver: that is, the light mina of silver.

II. THE SAME EQUATION REPEATED BETWEEN THE WERGELDS OF WESTERN TRIBES AND 200 GOLD SOLIDI OF CONSTANTINE.

[Sidenote: The gold solidus of Constantine a half-stater.]

Following the same thread of suggestion and turning from the Eastern to the Western world, we pass at a leap from the Eastern gold stater of 192 wheat-grains to the gold solidus of Constantine, of exactly half that number.

Up to the time of Constantine there had been confusion in the currency of the Roman Empire. It had been mainly a silver currency. Few gold coins were in general circulation, and these were of various standards. But at last the gold solidus of Constantine placed the world in possession of a fixed gold standard acknowledged all over Europe and remaining unchanged till the fall of the Eastern Empire.

The importance of this fact is obvious. For our knowledge of most of the wergelds of the tribes conquered by the Merovingian Franks and later on by Charlemagne is dependent upon it, inasmuch as the laws in which the customs of these tribes were in some sense codified, almost always describe the wergelds in gold solidi.

The gold solidus of Constantine was fixed by him at 1/72 of the Roman pound or ⅙ of the Roman ounce.

The Roman pound (originally used for copper) was built up from the scripulum according to the duodecimal system of the _As_, thus:

Scripulum 24 wheat-grains = 1·135 grammes Uncia (of 24) 576 ” = 27·25 ” Libra (of 288) 6912 ” = 327· ”

[Sidenote: Gold tremisses of 32 wheat-grains.]

The solidus of Constantine therefore contained 96 wheat-grains of gold, exactly the same number as the Eastern drachma, and half that of the stater or didrachma. At the same time smaller coins--thirds of the solidus, called _trientes_ or _tremisses_--were issued in great numbers, and these tremisses contained 32 wheat-grains of gold, exactly the same number as the Greek _diobol_.

[Sidenote: The normal wergeld of 200 gold solidi = gold mina.]

So that, in wheat-grains, the very prevalent statement of the wergeld of the full freeman in the laws of various tribes as 200 gold solidi was in fact the same thing as a statement that the wergeld was a _heavy gold mina_, for 200 solidi of 96 wheat-grains contained exactly the same number of wheat-grains as did the heavy mina of ancient Eastern usage--viz. 19,200. In other words, so persistent seems to have been the traditional connection of the wergeld with the gold _mina_ that Roman monetary usage was overruled, and instead of reckoning in Roman drachmas, ounces, and pounds, the wergelds were reckoned once more, or perhaps we should say continued to be reckoned, in what was really the heavy gold _mina_ of 200 solidi.

[Sidenote: And was often the equivalent of 100 oxen.]

Further than this, in the laws of some of the tribes, as we shall find, the double solidus or stater still retained its position as the gold equivalent of the ox, so that the typical wergeld of 200 gold solidi in these cases was actually, like the _mina_, the gold equivalent of 100 oxen.

Even where variations are found from this prevalent equation we shall still sometimes find the principle preserved, some other animal being substituted for the ox, and sometimes the long hundred of 120 being substituted for the decimal hundred.

[Sidenote: The standard weight of the wheat-grain varied.]

If this had been the whole truth the matter would be simple. But the fact is that, although the wergeld of 200 solidi of Constantine was the exact equivalent of the heavy gold mina reckoned in _wheat-grains_, there were differences in the standard weight of the wheat-grain. As already mentioned, the actual weights of Eastern and Greek staters were not exactly alike, and the Roman standard, in actual weight, was higher than the Eastern and Greek standards.

The latest authorities, Hultsch and Lehmann,[8] on the evidence of inscribed weights, describe what may for convenience be called the Eastern gold mina--_i.e._ the _heavy_ gold mina of Assyrian and Babylonian metrology--as weighing 818 grammes, or 100 staters of 8·18 grammes. They tell us also that there was a _commercial_ mina of 120 of the same staters. This commercial mina therefore weighed 982 grammes, and metrologists have inferred that the Roman pound was derived from this commercial mina being in fact exactly one third of its weight, or 327 grammes.

Now, as the commercial mina contained 120 staters of 8·18 grammes, it is obvious that the Roman pound, being one third of it, ought to have been divided, had Eastern reckoning been followed, not, as Constantine divided it, into 36 staters of 9·08 grammes, but rather into 40 staters of 8·18 grammes.

In other words, had Constantine, instead of following the Roman system of division, followed the Eastern system and divided the Roman pound into 40 staters of 8·18 grammes in weight, his double solidus, whilst containing 192 Eastern wheat-grains, would have contained only 172·8 Roman wheat-grains. As a matter of fact the Eastern stater of 8·18 grammes, if put in the Roman scales of Constantine, would have weighed only 172·8 wheat-grains of Roman standard, and the tremisses 28·8 wheat-grains. The Roman pound would have contained 240 of such tremisses, and the ounce 20 of them.

[Sidenote: The Roman lb. divided into 240 smaller tremisses of 28·8 wheat-grains.]

This is not the place to enter more deeply into the metrological question, but its interest in this inquiry lies in the fact that in Western Europe, in spite of Roman conquests and Roman influence, and in spite of the general knowledge and prevalence of the gold solidi and tremisses of the Empire, there seems to have been a remarkable tendency, consciously or unconsciously, to revert to the Eastern standard by dividing the Roman pound into 40 staters, 80 solidi, and 240 tremisses.

The ancient Gallic gold coinage, extending from the valley of the Danube across Gaul into Britain, was apparently of this ancient Eastern standard. And Cæsar himself, after his conquest of Gaul, reverted to it when he issued gold staters of one fortieth of the Roman pound.[9] Finally we shall find, in our next section, the Merovingian Franks, consciously or unconsciously, doing the same.

III. THE FRANKISH CURRENCY.

[Sidenote: The early currency of the Franks mostly gold.]

Most of the laws of the Continental tribes seem to have had their origin in the necessity to commit into writing what remained of local custom after Frankish conquest.

Broadly speaking they belong to two periods--the earlier one that of the conquests of the Merovingian Franks, and the later one that of the conquests of Charlemagne.

It becomes necessary, therefore, to distinguish between the coinage and currency of the two periods.[10]

When we turn from the Imperial currency of gold solidi and tremisses to that of the Frankish princes, we find them using a peculiar system of monetary reckoning, founded upon the metrical system already alluded to, of 20 tremisses or pence to the ounce and 240 to the pound.

[Sidenote: At first of Roman solidi and tremisses; afterwards of the smaller tremisses of 28·8 wheat-grains; then of silver tremisses or pence of the same weight.]

At first the Merovingian kings seem to have used or copied the Imperial solidi and tremisses. But before long they issued an abundant gold currency of their own, consisting almost entirely of tremisses. And these tremisses were reduced in weight by the division of the Roman pound of 6912 wheat-grains into 240 tremisses of 1/20 of the ounce, _i.e._ 28·8 instead of 32 wheat-grains. The abundant currency of these lighter gold tremisses continued till nearly the close of the Merovingian period. And how abundant this gold currency was, is shown by the fact that nearly 10,000 examples are recorded in the catalogues of Merovingian coins in public and private collections.

But towards the close of the Merovingian period came one of those strange monetary changes, so difficult to account for, which before long put an end altogether to the issue of these gold tremisses.

All through the Merovingian period payments had no doubt been made in silver as well as in gold, by weight, and during the later part of the period silver tremisses were issued of the same weight as the gold. And thus gradually, at first concurrently with the gold tremisses and at last driving them out, came into use a silver currency of 20 pence to the ounce and 240 to the Roman pound.

With this silver currency and the following of this weight system came in apparently the method of silver monetary reckoning, so familiar to us, of dividing the pound of 240 pence into 20 solidi or shillings of 12 pence--the pound being still the Roman pound of 6912 wheat-grains. This silver solidus was, however, only one of account and was never issued as a coin.

[Sidenote: The _nova moneta_ of Charlemagne.]

Finally, just before Charlemagne assumed the title of Emperor another change was made by the issue of his _nova moneta_.

[Sidenote: His pound of 240 silver tremisses of 32 wheat-grains, and silver solidus of account of 12 pence.]

The silver currency had by this time become predominant, and in the capitularies the silver solidus of 12 pence had already come into use. Charlemagne, in issuing the _nova moneta_, made no alteration in the method of reckoning, except that he brought the weight of the silver tremissis or penny back again to the Imperial standard of 32 wheat-grains, thus making his pound of 240 of the new pence 7680 wheat-grains instead of 6912 and the ounce 640 instead of 576.

At the same time we shall find that he tried, by making his _nova moneta_ legal tender, to force the new silver solidus of 12 pence into use as equivalent, in payments, for the gold solidus of three gold tremisses, which up to that time had been the solidus of the Salic laws.

[Sidenote: Made legal tender at a ratio of 1:4 with gold.]

This involved the altogether impossible ratio of 1:4 between the two metals instead of the Imperial ratio of 1:12.

In considering the wergelds of the laws belonging to this period, we shall find plenty of evidence of the confusion resulting from this remarkable experiment, made more apparent by the fact that the ratio of 1:12 was restored by one of Charlemagne’s successors.

It has been necessary to trouble the reader with this brief statement of somewhat complicated facts, because it would be impossible to understand the wergelds of the various Continental tribes if they were not borne in mind.

For the understanding of these wergelds the points to be considered will be:--

(1) As regards the laws, the recensions of which date from Merovingian times, it will be necessary to ask whether the solidi and tremisses were of Imperial or of Merovingian standard.

(2) As regards the later laws, the recensions of which date from the conquests of Charlemagne, we shall have to consider whether the wergelds are stated in gold solidi and tremisses, or in the silver solidi and pence of the _nova moneta_ of Charlemagne.

IV. THE NORMAN AND ANGLO-SAXON CURRENCY.

Working back from the known to the unknown, the facts relating to the Norman and Anglo-Saxon currency, speaking generally, confirm what has already been said of the Frankish currency, and become intelligible when the two currencies are considered together.

[Sidenote: The Norman and later Anglo-Saxon pound of 240 pence of 32 wheat-grains.]

In the first place, the Norman and Anglo-Saxon pound at the time of the Norman conquest was the pound of 7680 wheat-grains of silver or 240 silver pence of 32 wheat-grains, like that of the _nova moneta_ of Charlemagne, and the Normans, like the Franks, divided it for monetary purposes into 20 shillings of 12 pence.

At the same time the Normans recognised that the Mercians had all along reckoned in silver scillings of 4 pence, and the men of Wessex in scillings of 5 pence.

[Sidenote: The earlier pound of 240 sceatts or silver tremisses of 28·8 wheat-grains.]

If we examine the actual coinage of the Anglo-Saxons we find that, like that of the Franks, it may be divided into two periods. The earlier one corresponded to the Merovingian period during which the penny or sceatt of Mercia and Wessex was of 28·8 wheat-grains, like the silver tremisses or pence across the Channel.[11] The later period commenced when Offa in Mercia, followed by Alfred in Wessex, abandoned the ‘sceatt’ and issued pence like those of the _nova moneta_ of Charlemagne of 32 wheat-grains.

So marked is the distinction between the silver pence of the two periods in type and weight that they are known by numismatists as the ‘Sceatt series’ and the ‘Penny series.’

Finally, just as, in the case of the Frankish currency, the pound of 240 sceatts was the Roman pound of 6912 wheat-grains, so the pound of 240 of the later pence was the pound of the _nova moneta_ of 7680 wheat-grains, which in England after the Conquest became the standard or Tower pound.

At the same time it must be remembered that the identity or difference in these cases is in the reckoning in wheat-grains, and that there was room for some variation in the actual weight of the coins.

V. THE MINAS WHICH SURVIVED IN USE SIDE BY SIDE WITH THE ROMAN POUND.

According to the writers of the Merovingian and later period collected by Hultsch,[12] the Roman pound was not the only standard of weight which was in customary use in Europe.

[Sidenote: The gold mina of 200 gold solidi.]

We have seen that the commonly prevalent wergeld of 200 gold solidi was in fact the same thing, in wheat-grains, as the heavy Eastern and Greek gold mina of 19,200 wheat-grains. But besides this, there were two other minas of interest to this inquiry which seem to have been more or less locally in use, and more or less connected with the wergelds.

[Sidenote: The _mina Italica_ of 240 scripula of 24 wheat-grains or 20 Roman ounces.]

It seems that the Roman pound of 12 ounces was not the only pound in use in Italy. A still older Roman pound of 10 Roman ounces or 5760 wheat-grains seems to have existed,[13] which was in fact a pound of 240 scripula of 24 wheat-grains. And two of these pounds made what was called the _mina Italica_ of 20 Roman ounces. This mina Italica survived into Merovingian times. It contained 480 Roman scripula, and according to authorities quoted by Hultsch[14] the _scripulum_ was so far a common unit in Gaul as to have earned the name of the _denarius Gallicus_. The number of Roman wheat-grains in the mina Italica was 11,520. Its weight was 545 grammes.

In the Merovingian formulæ and in the early charters of St. Gall there are constant references to fines of so many _libræ_ of gold and so many _pondera_ of silver, from which the inference may be drawn that the pondus of silver was a different weight from the libra of gold. Whether the older Roman pound or half-mina-Italica was the ‘pondus’ or not, the fact that it consisted of 240 scripula may possibly have made it a precedent for the monetary mode of reckoning of 240 pence to the pound, adopted by the Franks and Anglo-Saxons.

This mina Italica has also a Celtic interest. It is curious to note that whilst so late as the tenth century the Cymric galanas or wergeld was paid in cows, the cow was equated with a monetary reckoning in scores of pence, or _unciæ argenti_, of which twelve made a pound of 240 pence. At the same time in the Cymric Codes there are mentioned, as we shall find, two kinds of pence: the _legal_ pence, probably those current at the time in England of 32 w.g., and the _curt_ pence or scripula of one third less, viz. 24 w.g. Now, whilst 240 of the former would equal the pound of the _nova moneta_ of Charlemagne, and of later Anglo-Saxon reckoning, 240 of the _curt_ pence or scripula would equal the older Roman pound or half-mina-Italica.

Turning from the Cymric monetary system to that of the early Irish manuscripts and Brehon laws, we shall find that it was based on the Roman scripulum of 24 wheat-grains, and not, like the Anglo-Saxon and Frankish system, on the tremissis. And we shall find that though thus based upon the scripulum and the ounce, when payments were made in gold and silver, the reckoning, instead of making use of the Roman or any other pound, counted rather in _scores of ounces_; _i.e._ consciously or unconsciously, in so many of the mina Italica.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: The _mina Attica_ of 16 Roman ounces or 2 marks.]

So much for the _mina Italica_ and its possible Anglo-Saxon and Celtic connections.

The other mina, the mention of which is important, formed the probable basis of Scandinavian reckoning in _marks_ instead of in pounds.

The authorities collected by Hultsch describe this mina as of 16 Roman ounces, and as the ‘_mina Attica_.’[15] It is a fact that 16 Roman ounces did exactly equal in weight (though not in wheat-grains) the light mina of 50 Attic staters or 100 drachmas. But under Roman influence this Attic mina no longer was divided like a mina into 100 drachmas, but had become twisted, as it were, into 16 Roman ounces and into 96 solidi of Constantine.

[Sidenote: The mark, ore, and ortug of Scandinavia.]

In Northern Europe, in nearly all the systems of reckoning which survived from mediæval times, the pound of 12 ounces was ignored. A pound of 16 ounces had taken its place. And this pound or mina of 16 ounces lay, as we shall find, at the root of the system of the earliest Scandinavian laws, with its monetary marks, ores, and ortugs, for it was the double of the _mark_ of 8 ounces. The Russian zolotnic (or ‘gold piece’), on which the weight system of Russia is based, was theoretically identical in wheat-grains with the Roman solidus, and the Scandinavian ortug with the double solidus or stater.

It is not needful to dwell further upon these points at this moment; but it will become important to recognise the Byzantine or Eastern origin of the mina of 16 Roman ounces when we come to consider the wergelds of Northern Europe, and particularly the equation between the Danish wergeld of 8 half-marks of gold and the silver wergelds of Wessex and Mercia as described in the compact between Alfred and Guthrum.

In that compact we shall have to recognise not only the contact of two methods of monetary reckoning widely separated in origin, the one of gold and the other of silver, but also the clashing of two traditional ratios between the two metals, viz. the Scandinavian ratio of 1:8, and the restored Imperial ratio of 1:12 followed by the Anglo-Saxons.

VI. THE USE OF GOLD TORQUES AND ARMLETS, &C., INSTEAD OF COINS.

[Sidenote: Wergelds paid in cattle or gold or silver by weight.]

Although the amounts of the wergelds are generally stated in the laws in gold or silver currency, more or less directly equated with the cattle in which they were originally paid, it would be a great mistake to imagine that the wergelds were often paid actually in coin.

A moment’s consideration makes it clear that a wergeld of a hundred head of cattle, whether paid as of old in cattle or in gold or silver, was a payment too large to be paid in _coin_. It was a payment that no ordinary individual could pay without the aid of his kindred, and it is hardly likely that so large an amount in actual coin could be collected even from the kindred of the murderer.

[Sidenote: Gold torques &c. made of a certain weight and used in payments.]

There is plenty of evidence to show that large payments in gold and silver were mostly made by weight, and very often in gold articles--torques, armlets, and bracelets--made to a certain weight.

In the Scald’s tale is the well-known passage:--

He to me a beag gave On which six hundred was Of beaten gold Scored of sceatts In scillings reckoned.

Whether the true meaning be six hundred sceatts or six hundred scillings, we have here a beag with its weight marked upon it.

The museums of Scandinavia and of Ireland--the two poles of German and Celtic culture--are full of these gold objects, and very frequently little coils of fine gold wire are wound round them to raise their weight to the required standard.

[Sidenote: Gold and silver objects weighing so many mancuses.]

It may be mentioned, further, in passing, that in many early Anglo-Saxon charters payments and donations are made in gold and silver objects, and that the weights of these are sometimes stated in so many _mancuses_--the mancus being apparently a weight of gold or silver of 30 pence, and equated in the later laws, in its silver value, with the value of the ox.[16]

[Sidenote: An historical example.]

It may be worth while before concluding this chapter to refer to an historic example of the use of gold objects of definite weight, and the adjustment of their value in differing currencies. The incident deserves to be noticed, and may be of use in helping to fix upon the memory the difference, so often alluded to, between the Roman pound of 6912 wheat-grains and Charlemagne’s pound of 7680 wheat-grains. It belongs to the precise moment when Charlemagne, having issued his _nova moneta_, was contemplating his visit to Rome and the assumption of the Imperial title, and it has an historical interest as showing that the _nova moneta_ was issued before the Imperial title was assumed.

Alcuin, who had long resided at the Court of Charlemagne, was now lying ill at Tours. In order to consult him, probably respecting the Imperial title, Charlemagne, with his queen Liutgarda, proceeded to visit him at Tours. Liutgarda was apparently taken ill while there, and died June 4 A.D. 800.

[Sidenote: Alcuin weighs gold bracelets in the scales of the _nova moneta_.]

During her illness Alcuin sent a messenger to Paulinus, the Patriarch of Aquileia, with two _armillæ_ of fine gold from Liutgarda,[17] so that he and his priests might pray for her. He stated in his letter to Paulinus that these armillæ weighed ‘xxiv. denarii less than a full pound of the _nova moneta_ of the king.’

Alcuin thus weighed the bracelets in the scales of the _nova moneta_, and they weighed twenty-four pence less than Charlemagne’s pound of 7680 wheat-grains. The interesting point is that 24 pence of the _nova moneta_ (24 × 32 = 768) deducted from the pound of Charlemagne left exactly 6912 wheat-grains. So that when Paulinus weighed the gold bracelets in his Roman scales he would find they weighed exactly a Roman pound.[18]

[Sidenote: But in correspondence with Ireland uses Roman weights.]

And yet, though writing from Charlemagne’s Court, Alcuin, when addressing his ecclesiastical friends in Ireland, no longer used the terms of the Frankish currency. It was after all a local one. Charlemagne’s Empire had its limits, and Ireland was beyond them. The area of ecclesiastical rule was wider than both Empires put together. Alcuin writes that he and his Imperial master had distributed among the Irish monasteries so many _sicli_ of silver. The _siclus_, according to the authorities collected by Hultsch,[19] was equal to two Roman _argentei_ or drachmas of silver. So that Alcuin used the di-drachma or stater of Roman reckoning as fixed in the time of Nero, when corresponding with churches outside the Empire of his Frankish master.

[Sidenote: Archbishop Egbert also uses Roman weights instead of local ones.]

As we proceed in our inquiries we shall find another great ecclesiastic (Egbert, archbishop of York and brother of the Northumbrian king) using the same Roman monetary terms in replying to the question of his clergy respecting the wergelds to be claimed in taking their proper position and rank in the Northumbrian kingdom. The answer was given in Roman _argentei_ and _sicli_, and not in Frankish solidi, or Anglo-Saxon scillings, or any other local currency.

In conclusion, the various currencies in which wergelds were paid may at first sight be perplexing, but the relevance of the facts stated in this chapter to a right understanding of the wergelds of various tribes under tribal custom, and of the amount of the wergelds to a right understanding of the constitution of tribal society, will become more and more apparent as the inquiry proceeds.