Weregild (also spelled wergild, wergeld (in archaic/historical usage of English), weregeld, etc.), also known as man price (blood money), was a precept in some archaic legal codes whereby a monetary value was established for a person's life, to be paid as a fine or as compensatory damages to the person's family if that person was killed or injured by another. Overview A weregild was a defined value placed on every man graded according to rank, used as a basis of a fine or compensation for murder, disablement, injury (or certain other serious crimes) against that person. It was assessed from the guilty party, payable as restitution to the victim's family. The weregild was codified, for example, under Frankish Salic Code. Weregild payment was an important legal mechanism in early Germanic society; 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. Similar to the way a payment was made to family, it was also a family or kin group responsibility to ensure the payment for the wrong committed, especially if the offender is unable to cover the cost of the offense himself. No distinction was made between murder and manslaughter until these distinctions were instituted by the re-introduction of Roman law in the 12th century. Payment of the weregild was gradually replaced with capital punishment due to Christianization, starting around the 9th century, and almost entirely by the 12th century when weregild began to cease as a practice throughout the Holy Roman Empire. Weregild from Norðleoda Laga: Etymology and related concepts The word weregild is composed of were, meaning "man", and geld, meaning "payment or fee", as in Danegeld. Geld or Jeld was the Old English and Old Frisian word for "payment"; in numerous modern Germanic languages such as Dutch, Frisian, German and Afrikaans, it survives as the word for "money." The Danish word gæld and Norwegian gjeld both mean "debt". "-Gäld" is also a constituent of some Swedish words, having the same meaning: e.g. återgälda (retribute, return favour), gengäld (in return/exchange), vedergälda (revenge), and the formal/legal term gäldenär (geldeneer, referring to someone who is indebted). The word survives in English in the word "yield"; an equivalent reconstruction in Modern English of the term would therefore be *man-payment (according to meaning) or *wereyield (according to etymology). The same concept outside Germanic culture is known as