Vira

Vira is an Old Russian and Old Norse punishment for the murder, expressed in the recovery from the culprit of monetary compensation. Also vira was called monetary compensation for other crimes. It is one of the basic principles of Russian law.

The value of the vira depended on the nobility and social importance of the murdered person. In Kievan Rus' it was determined and was paid to the prince. Gradually it supplanted the custom of blood feud. The most common size of the vira is 40 grivna. It was a very big fine. For this amount you could buy 20 cows or 200 rams. A rank-and-file member of the community, who was awarded a vira, was in a difficult situation. The exit for such people was the institution of wild vira ..

Wild Vira
A wild, or general vira, was a special kind of punishment in ancient Russia. The punishment was applied in a simple (non-destructive) murder and consisted of paying the entire community a fine (vira) for a member of which the community did not extradite. The punishment also carried out policing functions, linking members of the community with a mutual guarantee.

Similar ppunishments in other nations
The notion of monetary, rather than bloody, punishment for murder was also familiar to other populations of ancient Europe. The ancient Germans paid a monetary fine for murder which was called "vergeldom". The Celts has a similar custom: the ancient Irishmen have the concept of "erik", or "erikfine" (or ricfine), the Welsh: "galanas" (galanas). A similar custom was familiar to the Poles, it was called "crook" (meanings, "head"). In Islamic law, there is a similar concept of diyaya, although diyaya can be rejected by the relatives of the murdered person for the sake of the right to solve the issue through the courts (executions of the murderer).

The origin of the word
The word "vira" is close in meaning and sound to the German word "vergeld" ("Weregild", "wergild", "wergeld", "weregeld", etc.), meaning a payment (for the murdered) husband". Here, the Old German "ver" means "husband" and retains even an external resemblance to the Latin word "vir", Lithuanian "vyras", Sanskrit "viiras" and Latvian "vīrs" (all have the same meaning). On the Slavic soil, the word "vira" could appear by direct inheritance from the Pra-Indo-European language, or by borrowing from the Varangians (if the latter were Scandinavians).