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The inhabitants of the British Isles still formed tribal groups which engaged in blood feuds, but by the tenth century, King Edmund I, in an attempt to restrain and regulate the associated violence, had issued a law saying that a victim’s family could only take revenge on the slayer himself, not on the slayer’s wider family. The Norman kings went further, banning direct retribution altogether. A killer now had to pay compensation to both his lord and his king, as well as to the victim’s family. The monarchs were beginning to punish crimes directly. But this also meant distinguishing between a
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