The post that went missing
This post seems to have disappeared the last time I updated ... weird.
Help -- these are things I always forget to look up, till I pull out the stupid laws and have to teach them. First, does anybody have a reference for relative value of the denarii/solidi in the Salic laws (in today's money)?? Second, in the chrenecruda passage, does anyone know the significance of (or a reference for) the "jumping over the hedge" bit?
2 comments:
Hey, ADM,
First of all, good luck with the interviews. On fence-jumping in PLS LVIII, Drew suggests tentatively in her translation that this means 'abandoning his house' which seems reasonable, since the malefactor is supposed to be insolvent. As to the worth of shillings/pence in today's money, you might try searching the Mediev-L archives--a few years back there was a discussion there of a scholarly website that converts all types of currency into equivalent values in modern money. Frankly, I'm dubious of the whole thing, since the economic systems and price-structures are so different that conversion seems meaningless--it would be more useful to say what X d. equalled in terms of contemporary values (the old Y days pay for a skilled workman sort of thing).
Thanks, Phlebas. I guess the good news is that that's what I've always told the students (the fence-jumping) -- I must have picked it up somewhere ;-)
I may look at the archives -- but then, I may also just stick with my "it's a whopping big fine so as to deter people from committing the crime" talk, if spending the time won't help too much more than that!
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