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Damages
The word "damage" has an interesting etymology. Prior to 1066, compensatory payments under the old Anglo-Saxon system of laws were called weregild - literally, "man-price." If one man injured or killed another, or harmed a member of his family, his servant or slave, or one of his farm animals or crops, a hearing would be held before the ranking noble of the area - usually an eorl, sometimes a thegn - and an assembly of freemen that was known as the folc-gemot. Both sides of the case would be heard, and if found liable, the defendant was ordered to pay a sum of gold and/or silver, land, or livestock in compensation to the injured party. The amount of the weregild depended on the rank of the injured party and the extent of the loss or injury; if a defendant caused a thegn to lose a finger, he might be pay a far greater weregild than if he had killed one of his slaves.
Although the invasion of the Norman French changed English language and society immeasurably, the Norman legal system absorbed a great deal from that of the native Anglo-Saxons. In the process however, it completely transformed the legal vocabulary. Old English words such as folc-gemot and weregild were replaced by Old French words such as jure and dammage.
Today, most legal terms in the modern English-speaking world are from medieval French and Latin. The modern English word damage ultimately derives from the Latin damnum, from which we also get the words condemn and damnation. The original Latin word referred to a financial loss or a monetary fine.
In modern legal terminology, damage has replaced weregild for identifying the monetary award made by the court to an injured party in the course of litigation. However, the general principle is intact even after 1600 years. One aspect has changed, however; all plaintiffs and defendants are considered equal under the law; a loss or an injury is (ideally) given equal weight regardless of the plaintiff's socio-economic status.