Leges Visigothorum

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Title page of an edition of the Liber Iudicum published in Spain from 1600 with the Leges Visigothorum.

Leges Visigothorum (laws of the Visigoths ) are a non-contemporary collective term for the numerous Visigoth legal records of late antiquity and the early Middle Ages . The Leges Visigothorum, in which Germanic, Roman and Christian legal concepts are combined, are the most important cultural achievement of the Visigoths and in some cases had legal force in Spain until the 20th century. The text is in Latin but contains Germanic fragments.

The Visigothic Legislation

The Edictum Theoderici and the Codex Euricianus from the second half of the 5th century are considered to be the oldest Germanic legislation that has been handed down in writing . The Edictum Theoderici was more likely to have been a materially limited legal enactment with no lasting significance, while the Codex Euricianus could have been the first Germanic tribal law and possibly coincided with the formal independence of the Visigothic Empire from the Roman Empire in 475 . The codex is undisputedly one of the Visigothic legal records and was probably issued by King Euric ; on the other hand, the authorship of the Edictum is controversial: sooner and later it was ascribed to the Ostrogothic ruler Theodoric the Great , then to the Visigothic King Theodoric II (brother of Euric). The Codex Euricianus is preserved in fragments in a Paris palimpsest from the 6th century , which begins with a chapter 276 and ends with a chapter 336. The Codex was supplemented by the Lex Romana Visigothorum ("Roman Law Book of the Visigoths") from 506 , also called Breviarium Alarici (anum) , as a summary of the late Roman Vulgar law .

Comprehensive legal records took place under King Leovigild and under the Kings Chindaswinth and Rekkeswinth ( Liber Iudiciorum - "Book of Judgments"). Leovigild's reform, which may have occurred in the peacetime after 576 , has not been recorded directly, but is attested by Isidore of Seville . The Liber Iudiciorum (probably started by Chindaswinth and issued by his son Rekkeswinth in 654 ), on the other hand, has come down to us in two manuscripts and two fragments and also allows for the revision of earlier provisions by tracing 319 parts called antiqua ("old") back to Leovigild. It cannot be determined whether this conceals older text levels or interim revisions; In any case, besides the antiqua regulations, there are only those that were issued by successors of Leovigild. The Liber Iudiciorum was the most comprehensive legislation in the Visigoth Empire. Its 500 laws consisted of the basic code of the Leovigild (around 300 laws) and the additions Chindaswinths and Rekkeswinths (each around 100 laws). The laws were also systematically divided into 12 books and again several sub-books. It brought together procedural law, private law, criminal law and also to some extent public law. The Liber Iudiciorum applied to all residents of the empire and repealed all previous laws including the Lex Romana Visigothorum. Last but not least, he introduced the principle that every judgment must be based on a legal principle and was intended to prevent arbitrary judicial decisions. A further amendment to the law was made under King Ervig in 681 (also preserved in two manuscripts), and finally the amendments to the law under King Egica are known through a vulgar version preserved in numerous manuscripts. A comprehensive revision that King Egica planned towards the end of the 7th century was no longer carried out.

Legal character

Almost every Visigoth king renewed or added to the law. The Leges Visigothorum was created in this self-confident way in which the rulers dealt with Germanic and Roman legal concepts. The relationship between the right classes is controversial. Church legal ideas also gained increasing influence on legislation. Under the influence of the conversion of the Arian Visigoths to Catholicism , its elevation to the imperial religion in 589 and the associated pressure to unify religion, some laws showed openly anti-Judaistic content. Under the increasing influence of Christian thought, the language of legal texts acquired a moralizing tendency from the 7th century; This is also to be understood as the suppression of the composition system (payment of atonement) in favor of corporal punishment up to and including the Old Testament Talion principle (retribution of like with like).

The traditional doctrine understands the Codex Euricianus and all others with a view to the Germanic personality principle (which, in contrast to the territorial principle , assumes that an individual is subject to the system of rule or legal system to which he personally belongs, be it as a tribal member or as a citizen) Legal records up to Rekkesvinth's Liber Iudiciorum as law applicable only to the Visigoths, while the Lex Romana Visigothorum remained the basis for the jurisdiction of the Romans or Romans. In any case, the Romanization of the Goths had progressed well since the 6th century, even if ethnic groups could still be distinguished. But the ban on marriage, for example, which still existed between the Goths and the Romans according to Eurician law, could no longer be enforced in practice. In fact, there were mixed marriages, not least in the upper classes, where they were politically advisable anyway. So this provision disappeared from the law books. After marriage between Romans and Teutons had been permitted, the members of such a legal association could not be treated well under fundamentally different laws. A logical consequence of the change was that the legal positions of members of both population groups had to converge. More recent research has increasingly emphasized the territorial validity of the laws and questioned their strict ties to tribal law.

Survival of the law

In practice, the Lex Visigothorum - measured against early medieval conditions - was very effective and survived the collapse of the Visigoth Empire. After the Islamic conquest of Spain in 711, the subjects of the new rule ( Mozarabs ) who remained Christian were able to retain Visigothic law within their communities, which, however, was no longer developed by the authorities due to the only local Christian structures and increasingly took on features of customary law. There were numerous private transcripts of the Liber Iudiciorum, known as the Vulgate versions, which changed the original text by adapting some laws to the new circumstances and even reinserting older laws. As a result, numerous ambiguities and contradictions arose. The local law of Toledo , the old capital of the Visigoth Empire , remained particularly close to the original text . In the course of the Reconquista , Ferdinand III, the saint , had it transferred into Castilian as Fuero Juzgo and, after he had guaranteed it as city charter of Toledo in 1222, used it in 1240 in the territories he had conquered. It remained in this form until modern times and only gradually lost its importance; In individual cases the Fuero Juzgo was cited by the courts until the 20th century.

designation

The Visigothic legal records had no official names; the manuscripts have different titles: Liber iudiciorum, Liber iudicum, Liber goticum, Liber iudicis, Forum iudicum, Lex Gotorum . Karl Zeumer fixed the term Leges Visigothorum in his text editions around 1900. The Liber Iudiciorum (as it was called soon after its publication or at the latest in the 8th century according to the oldest surviving codex) is considered to be the actual Lex Visigothorum due to its central importance ; in the first printed edition of Petrus Pithoeus from 1579 it still appears as Codicis legum Wisigothorum libri XII . The name Fuero Juzgo for the high medieval translation of the Liber Iudiciorum into Castilian is a corruption of the Latin-Romance name Forum Iudicum Gotico (Gothic Judges' Charter).

swell

  • Karl Zeumer: Leges Visigothorum antiquiores. in: Fontes iuris Germanici antiqui. Hanover 1894.
  • Karl Zeumer: Leges Visigothorum. Hanover 1902.

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