Codex Euricianus

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Codex Euricianus is a name in use since 1900 for a late antique record of Visigothic law in Latin, initiated by the Visigoth king Eurich . He's right historical importance as a source of Western and Eastern Roman vulgar law during the period of rule loss of the Romans over the West .

Around 475 Eurich had the law of the Visigoths recorded. Only fragments of this work are preserved in a palimpsest manuscript in the Paris National Library (Codex Parisinus Latinus 12161); only part of it is still legible. The Codex Euricianus was completely lost for centuries; the fragments were not discovered until the 18th century. It is possible that the Paris fragments are an adaptation of the Visigothic code that was first initiated by Eurich's son and successor Alaric II . Parts of the Codex Euricianus can be hypothesized from later Visigothic legislation, but the attempts at reconstruction are burdened with considerable uncertainty.

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The Codex Euricianus contains, among other things, regulations for the settlement of border disputes and especially of questions that arose from the land division between the settled Gothic conquerors and the Romanesque landowners, as well as provisions for lending, buying and donating, marriage and inheritance law. He is recognized in research as a pioneering legislative achievement for the Germanic codifications. The work is written in good Latin; Romance lawyers must have played a decisive role in its drafting . The proportion of Germanic and Roman legal concepts is disputed; it is undisputed that Roman law dominates. Notably the right materials are taken from the classic legal rules of at the turn of the third incurred the 4th century vulgarrechtlichen Paul Sentences written and shortened excerpts from the Institutiones Gai and next to excerpts from the constitutions of Roman emperors. The Codex Euricianus is thus also evidence of the advanced Romanization of the Visigoths.

Parts of the Codex Euricianus can be found later, presumably as a basis, in the Lex Baiuvariorum , the first Bavarian law codification. Other Germanic legal codifications , such as those of the Burgundians ( lex Romana Burgundionum ) or Franks and Alamannes ( lex Alamannorum ), are considered to have been influenced by the Codex Euricianus.

Legal historical controversy

The question of the territorial or personal validity of the Codex Euricianus is still controversial in current research. A simultaneous validity of the Codex Euricianus and the Codex Theodosianus , replaced by the Lex Romana Visigothorum of 506 issued by Alaric II and received as the most important of the Germanic codifications , is considered to be certain.

literature

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  • Eugen Wohlhaupter (ed. And translation): Laws of the Visigoths . In: Germanic Rights. Volume 11. Weimar 1936

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Jan Dirk Harke : Roman law. From the classical period to the modern codifications . Beck, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-406-57405-4 ( floor plans of the law ), § 1 no. 26th
  2. ^ Herbert Hausmaninger , Walter Selb : Roman private law. Böhlau, Vienna 1981 (9th edition 2001), ISBN 3-205-07171-9 , p. 50.
  3. ↑ Manuel Koch, Ethnic Identity in the Development Process of the Spanish Visigoth Empire. In: RGA . Berlin 2012

Remarks

  1. ^ PD King, Law and Society in the Visigothic Kingdom . P. 13
    Liebs, Lex Romana Visigothorum . P. 325
    Siems, Lex Romana Visigothorum . Spain 1941
  2. ^ Alfonso García-Gallo, Nacionalidad y territorialidad del Derecho en la época visigoda. In: AHDE 13 (1936-41) pp. 168–264
    Manuel Koch, Ethnic Identity in the Development Process of     the Spanish Visigoth Empire. Pp. 108–111
    Alvaro D'Ors, La territorialidad del derecho de los Visigodos. In: I Goti in occidente pp. 363-408

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