Note EG — Seventh Book

P. 186, c. 47. This feud, the sequel of which is given in Book IX, c. 19, is of some interest in the study of the criminal law of the period, but is told by Gregory in a somewhat tangled way, so that it seems best to summarize the main points in a note. A company who were celebrating Christmas were invited by a priest “to go to his house, to drink.” Evidently they had been drinking too much already, for one of them, Austrighysel, drew his sword and killed the priest’s slave who brought the message. Thereupon the feud began. Another of the company, Sichar, “who was on terms of friendship with the priest,” attacked Austrighysel at the church door, but the latter was forewarned and his party, killing Sichar’s servants, made off with his gold and silver and other property, Sichar himself escaping in the confusion. The case came before a court of citizens (in judicio civium) which gave judgment against Austrighysel, who was to pay the fine for homicide and for taking property without warrant. But Sichar, in the true spirit of a feudist, did not wait for this judgment. Learning where the property was kept, he took an armed band, murdered all in the house where the treasure was, and even carried off the flocks and herds. “On hearing this,” says Gregory, “we were greatly vexed and in conjunction with the judge we sent messengers to them to come to our presence and make a reasonable settlement and depart in peace, that the quarrel might not breed greater trouble.” Gregory even offered to advance the church’s money to pay the fine of the guilty one, if the latter had not money himself. But Chramsind, the representative of the family Sichar had murdered in the last incident, refused to accept settlement, and hearing later a false report that Sichar had been killed by one of his own slaves, he took up the feud anew, “summoned his kinsmen and friends,” plundered Sichar’s house, and killed all the slaves on his estate. The settlement of this tangled feud is extremely interesting, since it shows how the courts of the period were straining every effort to overcome the time-honored custom of the blood feud. “Then the two parties were summoned before the judge in the city and pleaded their causes, and the verdict was found by the judges that he [Chramsind] who had been unwilling to accept a money payment before and had burned the houses, should lose half of the award which [otherwise] would have been adjudged to him,—​this was done contrary to the law if only peace could be restored—​but Sichar was to pay the other half of the fine. Then the church gave money to the amount of the verdict; Sichar paid his fine and received a receipt for it, each party swearing to the other that at no time should one party go muttering things against the other. And thus the strife ended.” It did not end, however, as the nineteenth chapter of the ninth book shows.