Burgundy law
The Burgundy law comprises the Germanic legal codification from the empire of the Burgundians . It is mainly deposited in two collections: in the lex Burgundionum (also lex Gundobada or loi Gombette ) and the lex Romana Burgundionum .
Lex Burgundionum
The lex Burgundionum has been handed down in 14 manuscripts since the 9th century. These are divided into two text classes - one text with 88 titles and one with 105 titles. The legal texts of the lex Burgundionum, based on the example of the Roman legal tradition , consist of decrees of the Burgundian kings and deal with family law ( marriage , inheritance law ) as well as wergeld and penalties. They regulated life between Burgundians as well as between Burgundians and Gallo-Romans .
The oldest surviving copies date from the 9th century, but the lex Burgundionum is ascribed to King Gundobad , who died in 516, or at the latest to his successor Sigismund . The dispute over the attribution to Gundobad or Sigismund results from the handwritten tradition: Seven manuscripts name Gundobad, seven more Sigismund as the author of the lex. In a new version of Sigismund's lex it is very likely that a work originating in large parts from Gundobad and revised several times with the help of the Visigothic Codex Euricianus (influence but still unexplored) is reproduced. The interpolations Sigismund will not be very often.
The text of the lex conveys three groups of norms: wisdoms , legislative acts in the style of late Roman emperors and contractually established law. Depending on the source, an edict from one of the two kings introduces the text. When formulating the royal edicts, in which the rulers and the greats of the empire were probably also involved, the common law of the Burgundians was formulated based on Roman law. This can be seen above all in the adoption of texts from the Codex Theodosianus and from the Pauline tenses . Gundobad and Sigismund certainly had recourse to advisers who were well versed in Roman law.
The aim of the lex was to adapt the law to changing social and economic needs. For example, earlier rights (priores leges) should give way to a just solution after weighing up all circumstances (Tit. 42 lex Burgundionum), gaps in the legal tradition were closed (Tit. 48 lex Burgundionum). Judges were not allowed to decide unregulated cases of doubt alone in the lex, but had to submit them to the king, who as solus interpres legum had to make the binding decision.
Lex Romana Burgundionum
This text is a collection of adoptions from numerous sources of Roman law. The oldest surviving copy is from the 7th century. Presumably the lex Romana Burgundionum was intended primarily for use against the Gallo-Romans in the Burgundy Empire.
swell
- Franz Beyerle (Ed.): Laws of the Burgundy , Böhlau, Weimar 1936.
- Hermann Conring : The origin of German law (OT: De origine iuris Germanici , 1643), trans. by Ilse Hoffmann-Meckenstock, ed. by Michael Stolleis , Insel-Verlag, Frankfurt / M. [u. a.] 1994, ISBN 3-458-16653-X .
- Ludwig Rudolf von Salis (ed.): Leges Burgundionum . Hahn, Hanover 1892, ( Monumenta Germaniae Historica , Leges , Leges nationum Germanicarum (LL nat. Germ.) 2, 1).
Web links
- Theodor Bühler: Burgundy rights. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
- The lex Burgundionum in the Bibliotheca legum regni Francorum manuscripta , manuscript database on secular law in the Franconian Empire ( Karl Ubl , University of Cologne ).
- Lex Burgundionum and Lex Romana Burgundionum in the LegIT project ( digital recording and indexing of the vernacular vocabulary of the continental West Germanic Leges barbarorum in a database )
Individual evidence
- ^ Hermann Nehlsen : Lex Burgundionum , In: Handwortbuch zur deutschen Rechtsgeschichte (HRG) II , 1978, Sp. 1901-1915; the same Lex Romana Burgundionum , also in: HRG II , Sp. 1927-1934.
- ^ Hermann Conring : The origin of German law (OT: De origine iuris Germanici , 1643), trans. by Ilse Hoffmann-Meckenstock, ed. by Michael Stolleis , Insel-Verlag, Frankfurt / M. [u. a.] 1994, ISBN 3-458-16653-X , p. 34 f.