The earliest of these first codifications was the Lex Salica, codified
under Clovis near the year 500. Unquestionably, contact with Roman
institutions suggested the idea, even as the Latin language was the
vehicle, of this code. Otherwise the Lex Salica is un-Christian and
un-Roman, although probably it was put together after Clovis’s baptism. It
was not a comprehensive codification, and omitted much that was common
knowledge at the time; which now makes it somewhat enigmatical. One finds
in it lists of thefts of every sort of object that might be stolen, and of
the various injuries to the person that might be done, and the sum of
money to be paid in each case as atonement or compensation. Such schedules
did not set light store on life and property. On the contrary, they were
earnestly intended as the most available protection of elemental human
rights, and as the best method of peaceful redress. The sums awarded as
Wergeld were large, and were reckoned according to the slain man’s rank.
By committing a homicide, a man might ruin himself and even his blood
relatives (_Sippe_) and of course on failure to atone might incur
servitude or death or outlawry.
The Salic law is scarcely touched by the law of Rome. From this piece of
intact Teutonism the codes of other Teuton peoples shade off into bodies
of law partially Romanized, that is, affected by the provincialized Roman
law current in the locality where the Teutonic tribe found a home. The
codes of the Burgundians and the Visigoths in southern France are examples
of this Teutonic-Romanesque commingling. On the other hand, the Lombard
codes, though later in time, held themselves even harshly Teutonic, as
opposed to any influence from the law of the conquered Italian population,
for whom the Lombards had less regard than Burgundians and Visigoths had
for their subject provincials. Moreover, as the Frankish realm extended
its power over other Gallo-Teuton states, the various Teuton laws modified
each other and tended toward uniformity. Naturally the law of the Franks,
first the Salic and then the partly derivative Ribuarian code, exerted a
dominating influence.[368]
These Teuton peoples regarded law as pertaining to the tribe. There was
little conscious intention on their part of forcing their laws on the
conquered. When the Visigoths established their kingdom in southern France
they had no idea of changing the law of the Gallo-Roman provincials living
within the Visigothic rule; and shortly afterwards, when the Franks
extended their power over the still Roman parts of Gaul, and then over
Alemanni, Burgundians, and Visigoths, they likewise had no thought of
forcing their laws either upon Gallo-Romans or upon the Teuton people
previously dominant within a given territory. This remained true even of
the later Frankish period, when the Carolingians conquered the Lombard
kingdom in upper Italy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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