Punishments were cruel; death was called the "ordinary penalty." But there was in the Middle Ages no real penal law and procedure dealing with private offences. The murder of a plebeian was committed either by his own lord, whom nobody could accuse, or by another lord, who could indemnify the man's own lord for his loss as if he had been a slave. This custom was still in force in Poland, Lithuania, Denmark, Sweden and Norway. Under the name of "canonical purgations" (though unrecognised by canon law) certain kinds of divine judgments or duels were practised throughout Europe; and private vengeance flourished down to the time of Bartolo. In judgments concerned with allodial rights, the lords met in arms; and in the kingdom of Naples even in Vico's own days barons avenged intrusions upon their own feoffs on the part of other barons not by civil suits but by duels. In a society ruled by force, what wonder that the robbers of the heroic age returned, and that "pirate" became a title of nobility? Never has the fortune of kingdoms been so various or so inconstant. The Roman law of Justinian, penetrated as it was by the idea of equity, was abandoned and fell into oblivion. In France and Spain any one who dared to appeal to it in a cause was severely punished; in Italy it is certain that the nobles considered it dishonourable to regulate their affairs by Roman law, and professed to live according to that of the Lombards; while the plebeians, slower in throwing off ancient customs, continued to practise certain parts of the Roman law by force of habit. In fact the law of the period consisted rather of habits than of statutes: rigid formulae and solemn ceremonial once more acquired importance, and a distinction was made between _pacta nuda,_ naked agreements, and _pacta vestita,_ agreements clothed and reinforced by these formulae and ceremonies. An example of the respect in which formulae were held is afforded by the action of the Emperor Conrad III. On taking Weinsberg, a town which had supported his rival for the empire, he condemned it to extermination, making an exception only in favour of the women and all they could bring out with them. The women came out of the doomed city carrying on their backs their sons, husbands and fathers: and the Emperor, standing before the gate at the head of his army with swords drawn and lances in rest to satisfy their leader's terrible wrath, watched them and allowed them to pass safe and sound out of respect for the letter of his own decree.