Gairethinx

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Agilulf plate (helmet plate by Valdinievole, Bargello National Museum, Florence)

The Gairethinx (= Gerthing "general [people] meeting", later "the legally valid act carried out on the thing") was originally a thing , a public assembly of the army or the armed forces and vulgo of the free and under the Leges ( law ) of the Lombards thus legally competent men. It was named after the ritual custom that the men appeared to the thing armed with their ger and gave their legally binding consent by tapping the ger on a shield. On the Gairethinx , legal transactions such as donations were carried out and laws passed and enacted such as the Edictus Rothari ("per gairethinx secundum ritus gentis nostrae confirmantes").

The term Gairethinx, coming from an oral tradition of a legal ritual in the Longobard Thing Constitution, experienced an expansion of meaning and a change from the general Thing to the synonymous execution of a legal act in which the Ger became a representational symbol for the action, so that Gairethinx, depending on the procedure and circumstances, was just one "Donation" or the "release" of a slave could indicate (in the context of the Lombard legal term gisil " hostage " to the phrase "gaida et gisil" = "with spearhead and shaft"). Gerhard Dilcher interprets the scene depicted on the so-called Agilulf plate - and especially in the central figure constellation of King Agilulf framed by two spear-demonstrating warriors ( Arimanni , dukes ) - as a manifestation of the royal gentile power through the foundation and enforcement of law the Gairethinx .

Analogies of the use of a spear for legal acts on a thing can be traced back to the early Germanic times of Tacitus ' ( Germania chap. 11, 2; 13, 1).

literature

  • Gerhard Dilcher : "per gairethinx secundum ritus gentis nostrae confirmantes" - Rightly and ritual in Longobard law. With an excursus: The Agilulf plate as a testimony to the Lombard Gairethinx. In: Gerhard Dilcher, Eva-Marie Distler (eds.): Leges - Gentes - Regna. On the role of Germanic legal customs and the Latin writing tradition in the formation of the early medieval legal culture. Erich Schmidt Verlag, Berlin 2006, ISBN 978-3-503-07973-5 , pp. 419-458. Again in: Bernd Kannowski, Susanne Lepsius, Reiner Schulze (ed.): Gerhard Dilcher. Norms between orality and written culture: studies on the medieval concept of law and Longobard law. Böhlau Verlag, Cologne 2008, ISBN 978-3-412-20120-3 , pp. 289-330.
  • Gerhard Dilcher: Medieval law and ritual in their mutual relationship. In: Frühmittelalterliche Studien 41, 2008, pp. 297–316. ( fee required from de Gruyter ).
  • Willem van Helten: About Marti Thincso, Alaisiages Bede et Fimmilene (?), Tuihanti, (longob.) Thinx, (Got.) Þeis and (left.) Dinxen-, Dijssendach etc., (mnd.) Dingsedach. In: Contributions to the history of German language and literature 27, 1902, pp. 137–153. ( fee required from de Gruyter).
  • Walter Pohl : Leges Langobardorum. In: Heinrich Beck, Dieter Geuenich, Heiko Steuer (eds.): Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde , Volume 18. de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2001, ISBN 3-11-016950-9 , pp. 208-213. ( Fee Germanic archeology online by de Gruyter).
  • Ruth Schmidt-Wiegand : The vernacular words of the Leges barbarorum as an expression of linguistic interference. In: Frühmittelalterliche Studien 13, 1979, pp. 56-87. ( fee required from de Gruyter).

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