Winston Churchill i verket "A history of the English-speaking peoples, vol 1, "The Birth of Britain"
The conquerors of Roman Britain ... introduced a whole scheme of society which was fundamentally sordid and vicious ... a principle common to all
Germanic tribes, namely, the use of the money power to regulate all legal relations of men.
If there was any equality it was equality within each social grade. It there was liberty it was mainly liberty for the rich. If there were rights
they were primarily the rights of property.
There was no crime committed which could not be compounded by a money payment. Except failure to join an expedition, there was no offence more
heinous than that of theft.
An elaborate tariff prescribed in shillings the ... exact value or worth of every man. An aetheling, or prince, was worth 1500
shilling, a shilling being the value of a ... sheep; an eorl, or nobleman, 300 shillings; a yeoman farmer ... 100 shillings; a laet, or agricultural
serf, 40-80 shillings, and a slave nothing.
All these laws were logically and mathematically pushed to their extremes. If a farmer killed an eorl, he had to pay 3 times as much in compensation
as if the eorl was the murderer.
And these laws were applied to the families of all.
...
With money, all was possible. Without it only retribution or loss of liberty.
However, the aetheling, valued at 1500 shillings, suffered in certain respects.
The penalty for slander was the tearing out of the tongue. If an aetheling were guilty of this offence his tongue was worth five times that of an eorl
and fifteen times as much as that of a common laet, and he could only ransom it on these terms.
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