1. Germanic peoples of the 1st century, Minor legal disputes were settled on a day-to-day basis by elected chiefs assisted by elected officials, and criminal cases put before the thing. The Thing, used the law and heard witnesses to rule whether the accused was guilty or not.

  2. Any injury must be compensated according to the damage done, regardless of motive or intent. (ie: Law = Tort = Natural Law) Lighter offenses required damages, paid in part to the victim and in part to the king.

  3. The most extreme punishment for crimes considered irredeemable was outlawry: the declaration of the guilty party as beyond the protection of the law. (Worse than ostracization, it mean loss of reciprocal defense under the common law: open season on you, family, property.)

  4. It was a death penalty in practice, but not one by direct action. The death penalty by direct action was reserved for two kinds of capital offenses: military treason or desertion was punished by hanging, and rape by strangling and burial in a bog. Bog Bodies=Rapists/Adulterers

  5. The difference in capital punishment is explained by the idea that “glaring iniquities” must be exposed in plain sight, while “cowardice, effeminacy, and pollution” should best be buried and concealed. (Note the disgust response.)

  6. My point? All militia orders whether raiding steppe herders, conquering IE Europeans (Aryans) mixing farming and herding, greeks, Romans, or continental germanics and vikings, pirates, and the British and American conquerors, practiced the same law of TORT b/c it’s NECESSARY – it’s the only means of organizing a market of warriors.

  7. And the only means of organizing a polity of warriors: a militia.