Page "Blood money (restitution)" Paragraph 1

Blood money is, colloquially, the reward for bringing a criminal to justice.

A common meaning in other contexts is the money-penalty paid by a murderer to the kinsfolk of the victim.

These fines completely protect the offender ( or the kinsfolk thereof ) from the vengeance of the injured family.

The system was common among the Scandinavian and Teutonic peoples before the introduction of Christianity, and a scale of payments, graduated according to the heinousness of the crime, was fixed by laws, which further settled who could exact the blood-money, and who were entitled to share it.

Homicide was not the only crime thus expiable: blood-money could be exacted for all crimes of violence.

Some acts, such as killing someone in a church or while asleep, or within the precincts of the royal palace, were " bot-less "; and the death penalty was inflicted.

Such a criminal was outlawed, and could be killed on sight.