[16] The crime of rape was considered by the Visigothic legislator in the original and broader acceptation of the term, and not according to the more limited significance attaching to it at the present day. It included, therefore, the offences of abduction and kidnapping; all survivals of practices observed by mankind in their natural condition; one of whose customs, marriage by capture, still prevails among certain barbarous nations. By the Visigoths, as by the Romans, rape, theft, and some other crimes, were classed as private wrongs, to be expiated by the infliction of personal vengeance. For this reason, the ravisher was delivered up to the tender mercies of the relatives of the victim; or, reduced to servitude, he was compelled to serve the latter for life.--[ED.] [17] The Statute of Limitations could be pleaded in few crimes, under the Visigothic Code, and especially was this true where the defendant had been guilty of what we would call a felony. The reason for its adoption in this instance is obscure, and this law may have been enacted for some special purpose, or to fit some particular case; retroactive legislation being common under the Visigothic Monarchy. In all other laws published under this Title, marriage between the parties is not only absolutely prohibited, but every precaution is taken to make it impossible. As the former decrees and enactments are not stated to have been abrogated by the promulgation of the above-mentioned law, its application and enforcement would seem to have been difficult, to say the least. Such conflicting legislation was, however, not unusual under the polity of the Visigoths.--[ED.] [18] No one can doubt that, under such conditions, it was “fully satisfied.” This is another instance where the punishment of a personal injury was regarded, not as an offence against the community, and a breach of good morals, but as a case demanding private retribution, as is specifically stated in the law itself. The distinctions between the crimes of rape, adultery and fornication, as now established, are not clearly set forth in the Visigothic Code. Intercourse with a widow is designated adultery. The rape of a woman of any condition, is frequently called adultery with violence. The excessively harsh penalties prescribed for such offences, and which, as a rule, were only limited by the caprice or compassion of the party injured, are a relic of the customs of the Northern barbarians, with whom female chastity was as much the rule as, on the other hand, it was the exception among the warmer-blooded nations of Southern Europe. Most of the laws relating to crimes against women are termed “ancient,” showing their derivation from a remote antiquity, or Roman origin.--[ED.]