Simple Table Example Simple Table Example
The following table gives values for a number of things in ounces, ells, years of production of wadmal, and years of wages. The ounce is assumed to be worth six ells, the years production of wadmal to be three hundred ells (three hundred days at one ell/day) and the year's wage to be one mark of forty-eight ells. (linearize the following table)
Item |
Ounces of silver |
Ells of cloth |
Years production of wadmal |
Years wages |
Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Normal Price of Male thræll |
12 |
72 |
.25 |
1.5 |
Carl O. Williams, supra note 4, at 29 |
Manumission price of thræll |
12 |
72 |
.25 |
1.5 |
Sveinbjorn Johnson, supra note 4, at 225 |
Wergeld for thræll |
12 |
72 |
.25 |
1.5 |
Njal's saga, supra note 3, at 108 |
Wergeld for free man |
100 |
600 |
2 |
12 |
Njal's saga, supra note 3, at 255 |
Wergeld for important man |
200 |
1,200 |
4 |
25 |
Njal's saga, supra note 3, at 255 |
Law-speaker salary |
50+ |
200+ |
1+ |
5+ |
Vigfusson & Powell, supra note 1, at 348 |
Wealth of very rich man |
20,000 |
4,800 |
400 |
2,500 |
Einar Olafur Sveinsson |
Price of cow |
12 |
96 |
.25 |
2 |
Einar Olafur Sveinsson, supra note 44 |
Magnusson and Palsson (Njal's saga, supra note 3, at 63) interpret the ounce by which compensations are measured as probably meaning "an ounce of unrefined silver ... worth four legal ounces," Williams, supra note 4, at 31, interprets it as the legal ounce.
Wergeld for a thræll, the price of a thræll, and the manumission price of a thræll were all equal, as might be expected. The price of a thræll presumably represents the capitalized value of his production net of room and board. It seems at first surprising that this should amount to only a year and a half of wages (also net of room and board), but we must remember that wages, according to Thorkell Johanneson, were lower in the early period, when thrælldom was common; thrælldom disappeared in Iceland by the early twelfth century, about when Gragas was being written.
It is worth noting that the wergeld for a thræll was considerably lower than for a free man. This is to be expected. The wergeld for a thræll was paid to his master and it was his master, not the thræll, who had some part in the political bargaining process by which, I have argued, wergelds were set. The value of a thræll to his master would be the capitalized value of his net product. But the value of a free man to himself and his family includes not only his net product but also the value to him of being alive. Food and board, in other words, are expenses to the owner of a thræll but consumption to a free man. Furthermore, one would expect that the costs of the thræll to the owner would include costs of guarding and supervision that would not apply to the free man's calculation of his own value.
If we interpret the "ounce" of Njal's Saga as a legal ounce, the usual wergelds for free men again seem somewhat low, ranging from 12 l/2 year"s wages for an ordinary man to twice that for a man of some importance. [55] Here again. we must remember that there is considerable uncertainty in our wage figures. Twelve and a half years" wages might be a reasonable estimate of the value of a man to his family, assuming a market interest rate of between 5 and 10 percent, but it hardly seems to include much allowance for his value to himself. If we accept the interpretation in Magnusson and Palsson [56] of the ounce in which the wergelds of Njal's Saga are paid as an ounce of unrefined silver, worth four legal ounces, the figures seem more reasonable.
(Sample table and text from Private Creation And Enforcement Of Law: A Historical Case by David Friedman)