[Sidenote: Laws of Rothari.] But Rothari is better remembered as the framer of the Lombard Code of Laws than as the conqueror of Liguria. In 643 he published the compilation of the traditional usages of the nation, which had hitherto never been committed to writing. It is noticeable that the code is promulgated, not on the king’s personal authority, but, like the English laws of Ine, ‘_Pro communi gentis nostrae utilitate, pari consilio parique consensu cum primatis judicibus nostris cunctoque felicissimo exercitu nostro_’—that is to say, by the king, with the counsel of his _witan_, and the assent of the armed folk-moot of the Lombard nation. The _Edictum Rotharis_ is a very primitive body of legislation, such as might have been promulgated in the depths of the German forests, instead of in the heart of Italy. It is mainly composed of elaborate lists of weregelds, of laws against armed violence, of rules of inheritance, of statements concerning the obligation of the follower towards his lord, of provisions for judicial duels, _per campionem_. There is hardly any mention either of things ecclesiastical or of city life, merely a provision against breach of peace in a church, and some rules about _magistri comacenses_, or skilled Roman artisans. We have from the laws a picture of a people dwelling apart by families, or _faras_, each in its own farm-clearing, surrounded by woods or open pasture land. Some are ‘free Lombards,’ called even thus early ‘_barones_,’ others the ‘men’ of a duke or of the king. Below them are _aldii_, who correspond to mediæval villeins, the half-free occupiers of the land of the Lombard master. These, no doubt, are the remains of the old Roman population, _coloni_ who had once cultivated the _massa_ of a Roman _curialis_. The royal authority is found relegated to the local dukes in all military matters, while civil affairs are dealt with by the king’s _schulthais_, or reeve (as the old English would have called him), or to the _castaldus_, who seems to have been the king’s representative in the city, as opposed to the country-side. It is noticeable, as showing the extremely un-Roman character of the Lombard laws, that they are drawn up by a German official, the notary Ansoald, not by a Roman bishop or lawyer, as would certainly have been the case in Gaul or Spain. Their execrable Latin, which makes light of all concords, or rules of government of prepositions, could not have been the work of any educated Italian. With the death of Rothari in 652, began a time of trouble and confusion for the Lombards, in which they ceased to win ground from the Romans, and fell into civil strife and anarchy. It commenced by the murder of Rothari’s son, Rodoald, after he had reigned less than six months. He was a prince of licentious manners, and fell a victim to the dagger of an outraged husband (653).