[Sidenote: Only one third of 160 solidi.]
Now let us compare the wergeld of the liber in these districts, viz. 53 solidi and 1 tremissis of Merovingian currency, with what the statement in the Ripuarian law would lead us to expect it to have been, viz. 160 of the same solidi. It is exactly one third of what it ought to be. And the inference from what we have learned in the last section would be that the maker of the laws had divided the wergeld of ancient custom by three.
But for the moment we pass on to follow further the text of the Frisian laws.
[Sidenote: Slave to be paid for at his value.]
In s. 11 of Tit. I. it is enacted that if any one, whether nobilis, liber or litus, or servus, shall slay the servus of another, he shall compound for the servus according to his value. And in s. 13 of the same title it is stated that if a slave shall kill either a nobilis or liber or litus, unknown to his lord, the lord of the slave shall swear that he did not order it and pay twice the value of the slave. But if the lord cannot deny that he ordered it he must pay for the homicide as if he had done it with his own hand.
In Title IV. it is again enacted that if any one shall kill the slave of another he shall be compounded for at the value put upon him by his lord. And the same rule is made to apply to the case of a horse, ox, sheep, goat, pig, and all domestic animals, except the dog: they are all to be paid for at the owner’s estimate of value, or the alleged slayer must clear himself with as many oaths as the judge may require.
The _dog_ is the only animal whose value is fixed by the law. And its value at first sight was not the same in the several divisions.
_Between Laubach _Between Laubach and Sincfal._ and Weser._
Dog for hawking 4 sol. 8 solidi and 12 Wolfhound accustomed to kill wolves 3 sol. Wolfhound which wounds but does not kill 2 sol. 8 ” Shepherd dog 1 sol. 4 ”
The difference between the value of the dog in the Northern and the other divisions can hardly be other than one of different currencies. Probably the values for the Northern division may be silver values. It may, however, be remarked in passing that the value of a dog in any case is not lightly to be regarded as excessive. Its high value in the Frisian laws, and also in other laws, shows how dependent the tribes surrounded by forests were upon its help. In the Cymric Codes, as we have seen, the herdsman’s dog was worth as much as an ox. In the Alamannic Laws the shepherd dog which could kill a wolf was valued at 3 gold solidi, or half as much again as the ‘best ox,’[158] and in the Lex Salica the _canis pastoricalis_[159] was valued at 3 solidi. It is not difficult, therefore, to understand how in Frisia the dog which could kill a wolf should be worth 3 gold solidi, and the ordinary shepherd dog a gold solidus.