Germanic tribal rights
Germanic tribal rights are a non-contemporary collective term for the legal records in the Germanic successor realms of the Roman Empire from the middle of the 5th century to the 9th century. In the Germanic tribal law, Germanic, Roman and Christian legal concepts merged with varying degrees of importance. The records are in Latin and interspersed with Germanic expressions.
Emergence
Originally, the Germanic tribes neither knew secret signs nor did they use writing. As a result, they did not obey any written law. Nonetheless, Tacitus attested to them in an oldest traditional report that they maintained a well-ordered community and that praiseworthy customs were to be found.
Since the middle of the 5th century ( late antiquity ), legal records were created in the Germanic successor realms of the Imperium Romanum, which were shaped by the encounter between the Germanic-pagan legal culture and the Roman-Christian one. Due to the writing of the laws in Latin and the visible interaction between Roman law on the one hand and Germanic tribal law on the other hand, the records are not to be regarded as independent and original law. The use of the word Germanic merely indicates that the texts were created under Germanic rule.
The tribes of the migration period ( Goths , Vandals , Franks, etc.) originally did not form ethnic units, but were communities of special purpose of clan associations, which could also dissolve or reassemble in times of upheaval. Opposed to them were the actual people of the state, the Romans or Romans , who mainly saw themselves as Catholic Christians separated from the often pagan or Arian Germanic tribes. For a long time, this religious contrast also caused a feeling of alienation between the ethnic groups.
The Roman and Germanic legal cultures no longer stood side by side in isolation, at the latest with the Roman conquest on Germanic soil; the Germanic tribes had to deal with the rights of the Roman invaders, which more and more penetrated their tribal rights, which were initially passed down orally. However, this was then no longer the “classical Roman juristic law”, but the vulgar law that arose from the late antique cultural change , in which the humanities abstraction had been abandoned in favor of simplifying terminology and which had taken on some traits of customary law - which led to the adaptation of vulgar law by essentially customary law shaped Germanic tribal society contributed quite a bit.
Overview list
The most important Germanic tribal rights are as a result of their emergence:
| Federates on formerly Roman soil (mid-5th to mid-7th century) | |
|---|---|
| Edictum Theoderici | Middle of the 5th century , oldest collection of Gothic and Germanic laws |
| Codex Euricianus | About 475, regulations going back to the Visigothic ruler Eurich |
| Lex Burgundionum | Between 480 and 501, Burgundian law based on the Codex Euricianus and Codex Theodosianus |
| Lex Salica | Between 507 and 511, the oldest Franconian legal collection |
| Edictum Rothari | Around 643, Lombard legal record |
| Liber Iudiciorum or Lex Visigothorum | Around 654, permanent Visigoth legal codification of King Reccesvinth |
| South German Germanic tribes (7th-8th centuries) | |
| Pactus legis Alamannorum | 1st half of the 7th century , oldest Alemannic legal record |
| Lex Alamannorum | From 725 onwards, the Pactus Legis Alamannorum was reorganized |
| Lex Baiuvariorum | After 740, based on the model of the Codex Eurianus and the Lex Alamannorum |
| Franconian peripheral areas (9th century) | |
| Lex Ribuaria | 802/803, legal collection of the " Rheinfranken " around Cologne including the rights of the Frisians ( Lex Frisionum ), Saxony ( Lex Saxonum ) and Thuringians ( Lex Thuringorum ) |
According to the Germanic personality principle , which, in contrast to the territoriality principle , assumes that an individual is subject to the system of rule or legal system to which he or she personally belongs, be it as a tribal member or as a citizen, in addition to tribal rights, collections of laws were created that complement the existing Vulgar law from the final phase of the Western Roman Empire for the attention of the autochthonous Roman population confirmed:
| Roman legal edicts | |
|---|---|
| Lex Romana Visigothorum or Breviarium Alarici (anum) | 506, largely Roman-influenced collection of laws of the Visigoth king Alaric II. |
| Lex Romana Burgundionum | Around 500 (controversial dating), extract from Roman legal sources |
Embossed
The character of the written laws is essentially divided into three parts: customary law (" civil law ") and the statutes of the respective rulers (" constitutional law "), as well as regulations on the position of the church (" canon law "). In the texts, both the secular claim to power of the new rule and the will to create peace ( Pax Romana ) in the succession of the Roman-Christian Empire become tangible. The replacement of archaic customary rights, such as vengeance and feuding practices between individuals and families, with norms of punishment standardized by the authorities is understood as an expression of the civilizational demands on the Germanic leadership class, which was increasingly Romanised (adoption of vulgar Latin and the Catholic faith). However, they were not codifications with a comprehensive or even conclusive character, but mostly only made provisions as required, insofar as legal violations required sanctions or satisfaction.
There are points of contact or dependencies between the various Germanic tribal rights, although these and any common origins are not fully clarified. The influence of Roman law is greatest among those tribes that were settled as federates (allies) within the empire: Goths and Burgundians . Their army kings were also imperial magistrates, their right to legislate derived from imperial power and thus from Roman legal norms. The same applies to the Franks. Although they never completely left their original settlement area, they also settled on imperial territory and later conquered considerable parts of former Roman Gaul and finally Italy, so that they penetrated areas in which Roman law still applied to a considerable extent. The Franconian legal records at the beginning of the 9th century form the conclusion of the early medieval tribal rights. With the decline of Franconian rule, the written tradition of the law ceased and only began again in the 12th century with the legal mirrors and city law books , which fixed the customary law , which was now territorially pronounced.
The laws were created on the initiative of the Germanic princes. In tension there was the traditional idea that the prince preserved the rights already given and could only improve it with the cooperation and approval of the military and spiritual elite; every Germanic prince had to re-establish his rule in a kind of “ social contract ”, which is why all legal agreements were more personal than institutional in nature and hardly survived a change of rule. In the written legislation, on the other hand, the insight of the Roman authorities, which was taken over from their Germanic legal successors, manifested itself that, with increasing social and state consolidation, the law does not only come from the people as " customary law ", but at the same time an expression of institutional (i.e. state or church) creation of power is.
The legal works regulated the coexistence of Romans and Teutons, purchase and donation, wills, loans, certificates and much more. They convey a multifaceted picture of legal concepts in the early Middle Ages and are therefore an important source of historical knowledge. However, they also place high demands on their interpretation. Especially in the Alemannic, Burgundian and Longobard texts, Germanic terms have to be developed first, and Germanic legal thought can even stand behind unambiguous Roman legal terms. In addition, they do not necessarily reflect the legal reality and their normative force and actual effect are elusive.
Terminology
The subsequent collective terms for the Germanic legal records are part of the history of science and politics: After the reception of learned Roman law in Europe began in the 12th century, the humanistic jurists spoke of Leges Barbarorum (barbarian laws), on the one hand because of their - in comparison with classical Roman law Legal texts - corrupt Latin, on the other hand to illustrate the inferiority of this legal culture compared to that of the corpus iuris civilis of Justinian I, which was rediscovered in the high Middle Ages and became authoritative . The choice of the word barbaric was deliberately derogatory, as the Germanic tribes were viewed as the destroyers of the Roman Empire and ancient culture. The Germanists of the 19th century , based on romanticism and national democratic ideas of the Vormärz , assessed them positively as Germanic people's rights , in that "the people" were regarded as the bearer of a predominantly customary legal culture. The simultaneous or only slightly more recent designation as tribal rights was more differentiated , while in the National Socialist German Reich one spoke simplifyingly of Germanic rights .
Tribal rights still existed in the high Middle Ages in the form of the Sachsenspiegel , Schwabenspiegel and other legal books.
literature
- Hermann Conring : The origin of German law. Edited by Michael Stolleis , translated by Ilse Hoffmann-Meckenstock. Insel, Frankfurt am Main 1994, Chapter 1 ( The Germanic tribes once did not live according to written laws ), pp. 18-20.
- Karl Kroeschell: Right . In: Heinrich Beck (Ed.): Germanen, Germania, Germanische Altertumskunde (Hoops RGA). 2., completely reworked. and strong exp. Edition. de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1998, ISBN 3-11-016383-7 , pp. 215-228.
- Gerhard Dilcher, Eva-Marie Distler (eds.): Leges - Gentes - Regna: on the role of Germanic legal customs and Latin script tradition in the development of the early medieval legal culture . Erich Schmidt Verlag, Berlin 2006, ISBN 978-3-503-07973-5 .
- Gerhard Dilcher: Germanic law . In: Albrecht Cordes , Heiner Lück , Dieter Werkmüller , Christa Bertelsmeier-Kierst (Eds.): Concise Dictionary of German Legal History , 2nd, completely revised and expanded edition, 10th edition. Erich Schmidt Verlag, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3- 503-07911-7 , col. 241-252.
Web links
- Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Leges nationum Germanicarum
- The Roman Law Library: Leges Romanae barbarorum
- Bibliotheca legum regni Francorum manuscripta . Manuscript database on secular law in the Franconian Empire (Karl Ubl,University of Cologne).
Individual evidence
- ↑ Hermann Conring : The origin of German law. Edited by Michael Stolleis , translated by Ilse Hoffmann-Meckenstock. Insel, Frankfurt am Main 1994, pp. 18-20; Another (not verifiable) view was taken by Juan de Mariana in Rerum Hispanicarum historia, Liber 9, Chapter 18 : according to this, the Goths, Lombards, Franks and Vandals had letters.
- ^ Tacitus Historiae IV, 76.