284 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

Appendix

I.

by bis own clan , the quarrel was spread stillwider, and bred endless disorders in the nation.-The Frisians, a tribe of the Germans, hadnever advanced beyond this wild and imperfect:state of society; and the right of private revengestill remained among them unlimited and uncon-trouled Rut the other German nations, inthe age of Tacitus , had made one step farthertowards completing the political or civil union.Though it still continued to be an indispensablepoint of honour for every clan to revenge thedeath or injury of a member, the magistrate hadacquired a right of interposing in the quarrel,and of accommodating the difference. He obligedthe person maimed or injured , and the relationsof one killed, to accept of a present from theaggressor and his relations 57 , as r- compensationfor the injury ”, and to drop all farther prosecu-tion os revenge. That the accommodation of onequarrel might not be the source of more, thispresent was fixed and certain, according to therank of the person killed or injured , and wascommonly paid in cattle , the chief property ofthose rude and uncultivated nations. A presentof this kind gratified the revenge of the injuredfamily by the loss which the aggressor suffered :It satisfied their pride by the submission which itexpressed: It diminished their regret for the loss

LL. Frist tit. 2 . apud I.indenbrog. p. 491.

17 LL. Æthelb. § 23. LL. Ælf. § 27.

" Called by the Sasons ma^hota.