[*] But the other
German nations, in the age of Tacitus, had made one step farther towards
completing the political or civil union. Though it still continued to be
an indispensable point of honor for every clan to revenge the death or
injury of a member, the magistrate had acquired a right of interposing
in the quarrel, and of accommodating the difference. He obliged the
person maimed or injured, and the relations of one killed, to accept of
a present from the aggressor and his relations,[**] as a compensation
for the injury.[***] and to drop all farther prosecution of revenge.
That the accommodation of one quarrel might not be the source of more,
this present was fixed and certain according to the rank of the person
killed or injured, and was commonly paid in cattle, the chief property
of those rude and uncultivated nations.
[* LL. Fris. tit. 2, apud Lindenbrog. p. 491.]
[** LL. AEthelb, sect. 23. LL. AElf. sect. 27]
[*** Called by the Saxons "maegbota."]
A present of this kind gratified the revenge of the injured family by
the loss which the aggressor suffered: it satisfied then pride by the
submission which it expressed: it diminished their regret for the loss
or injury of a kinsman by their acquisition of new property; and thus
general peace was for a moment restored to the society.
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