Early Germanic law endeavored to contain this sanctioned vigilantism. It assigned monetary values to virtually every antisocial act to encourage material compensation over vengeance.

By the fifth century, when the Germanic barbarians began to settle in large numbers within the Western Empire, Roman law had had many centuries of development behind it. From the law of a small ...

William of Normandy's conquest in 1066 changed England and its language. The Anglo-Saxon King Harold lost, deeply affecting ...