A medieval fine or legal penalty paid as compensation for causing bloodshed or drawing blood from someone.
Variant of 'bloodwit,' from Old English combining 'blod' (blood) and 'wite' (penalty), used in Anglo-Saxon and Norman law codes. The alternate spelling reflects regional linguistic variations in early medieval England.
The two spellings 'bloodwit' and 'bloodwite' show how inconsistent medieval spelling was—there were no standard dictionaries, so legal clerks wrote phonetically, making historical documents like treasure hunts for variant word forms.
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