The Wergeld, following the manuscripts.
Résumé
Was the Wergeld a « Germanic » notion? The European research has modified the description of antique Germanity inherited from XIX’ and XX’ centuries The Franks, as Roman soldiers, were they in the position to transmit a specific legal notion? The manuscripts reveal a primitive form in uuere-gildus. The study focuses on the “barbarian” laws of the Franks, Lombards, Alemans and Bavarians. When comparing the cases of application of the uueregildus with the legal contexts of the late Roman Empire many points appear in contradiction with the usual definition of the Wergeld. The actions are never private, but generally take place in front of a judge. The criminal procedures applied are similar to late Roman ones. The pecuniary estimation of a free man had become a common practice under late Roman Empire. The Theodosian code gives proofs of judicial ransom practises under imperial right. The uuere-gildus may have been a “popular” equivalent of a Roman penal denomination. The uuere-gildus is equivalent to the ‘high tax’, the maximal penalty. The default in its payment implies capital punishment of the condemned. In late Roman right, this procedure corresponds to the penal treatment of causae capitales, sometimes said: poenae maximae, of which the uuere-gildus seems to be a celto-latine transposition. The historiography of the uuere-gildus presents the abuse of its use as a pretended historical proof, under Carolingian times, and from the XVI’ to XX’ century, for the benefit of the thesis of a pretended Frankish “conquest”.
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