Lex Frisionum

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Lex Frisionum ( Latin for the law of the Frisians ) is a collection of early medieval legislation from the 8th century. It collects rules from traditional Frisian criminal law and summarizes them in an overview with imposed (imposed) Franconian laws. The language of the earliest version of the Lex Frisionum is Latin.

history

In the early Middle Ages, the Frisians settled on the North Sea coast in Friesland , which at that time stretched from the mouth of the Rhine in what is now the Netherlands north-east to the Elbe and from the Eider up to the Vidå in Denmark . The Frisians were organized in loose tribal associations without a permanent central rule. The Franconian ruler Pippin the Middle conquered the western part of Friesland (up to Dorestad and Utrecht ) in 690/695 and thus enabled the Christianization of the Frisians to begin . Christianization continued even when in the following decades the Franks repeatedly lost control of Friesland. Finally, in 785 , Charlemagne finally conquered Friesland including the eastern areas, with the exception of North Friesland north of the Eider, through his victory over the Saxons .

Charlemagne abolished all tribal duchies in the Frankish Empire, but granted the individual tribes a certain degree of independence. So the free among the Frisians were entitled to choose their pedestals themselves. As part of this reorganization of the empire, Karl arranged for a record of all tribal laws , including that of the Frisians.

The exact year the Lex Frisionum was recorded is not entirely clear. The earliest date given is 785, when Friesland was conquered by the Franks. The latest date given is 802/803, when the Germanic tribal laws were laid down at the Reichstag in Aachen . In addition, at this Reichstag, Charlemagne ordered the inclusion of special regulations for the clergy in the law books, which were still completely missing in the Lex Frisionum. As with other traditional tribal laws, there is no reference to the identity of the authors.

There are no original Lex Frisionum records. The earliest reference to them can be found in Johannes Basilius Herold , who recorded old Germanic tribal rights from the time of Charlemagne in a collection in 1557 ("Antiquitates Germanicae"). However, Herold must have had an older copy that has been lost.

construction

The Lex Frisionum is a penal code that specifies a precise level of punishment for each individual act , which usually consists of a sum of money.

It can be assumed that the original version of the Lex Frisionum, as with other Germanic legal texts, had no subdivisions in the form of chapters and numbering . Many of the rules and laws also appear twice or more than once. In the version handed down by Herold, he himself made a classification that is still common today for references to the text. Then the Lex Frisionum is divided into two sections. The first section is called “Et haec est simpla compositio” (“And these are the simple fines”) and is divided into 22 chapters, each devoted to a different topic: from manslaughter to theft and marriage to kidnapping . The second section is headed “Additio Sapientum” (“Additions of the Wise”) and covers topics ranging from feuds to the consecration of a sanctuary in eleven chapters .

meaning

The Lex Frisionum is the only source from the early Middle Ages in Friesland and also one of the few written sources from this era worldwide. The pagan Frisians had no script or did not use it, so that written records only began with Christianization. The Lex Frisionum therefore offers a brief insight into the events of an otherwise hidden epoch:

The Lex Frisionum applied to almost all of Friesland. However, different regions are distinguished in it. It expressly applies to the central part of Friesland (roughly the area of ​​today's province of Friesland in the Netherlands). Different rules are made in some places for two neighboring areas:

This proves a very early division of the Frisian areas, which still exists today. The area of ​​validity did not extend to today's North Frisia, which at the time the law was drafted was only at the beginning of its Frisian settlement and was outside of the Franconian territory.

The Lex Frisionum attaches great importance to the status of the persons concerned, according to which the amount of the punishment is then determined. There are four different stands :

  • the noble ones (nobilis),
  • the free (liber),
  • the servants or semi-free (litus),
  • the slaves (servus).

A clergy or other holy class is not mentioned.

Amazingly, the Lex Frisionum makes no distinction between the killing of a woman and that of a man. This is unusual because in other Germanic legal texts a woman was usually assigned a higher value than a man, as she was of greater importance to the clan or tribe due to her ability to have children. It is different in the Lex Frisionum, which thus shows parallels to Anglo-Saxon legal texts.

Of central importance is wergeld , a sum that has to be paid to their relatives for the killing or wounding of a victim. It is precisely determined how much which part of the family receives.

The Lex Frisionum contains many references to the early Christian religion: swearing on Christian relics , the Sunday rest, or the ban on selling slaves to pagans . But on the other hand, it also contains references to ancient pagan customs, which is unusual for documents from this period. One of the cruelest sections here is certainly the right of parents to kill a newborn child. Furthermore, draconian punishments for desecrating a temple are mentioned.

Examples

Note: 1 solidus was probably equivalent to 3.9 grams of gold .

  • I 1: “ Si nobilis nobilem occiderit LXXX solidos componat; de qua mulcta duae partes ad heredem occisi, tertia ad propinquos eius proximos pertineat. “(Translation: If a noble kills another noble, he has to pay 80 solidus. Two parts of this reparation belong to the descendants of the victim and part to the rest of the family.)
  • XIX: “ Si quis patrem suum occiderit, perdat hereditatem, quae ad eum pertinere debebat. "(Translation: If someone kills his father, he loses all inheritance that would otherwise belong to him.)
  • Add. XI 1 “ Qui fanum effregerit, et ibi aliquid de sacris tulerit, ducitur ad mare, et in sabulo, quod accessus maris operire solte, finduntur aures eius, et castratur, et immolatur Diis quorum templa violavit. “(Translation: If someone breaks into a sanctuary and steals sacred objects, he is to be taken to sea, and on the sandy beach that will be covered by the tide, his ears will be cut off and castrated he will be sacrificed to the god whose temple he profaned.)

literature

  • Ernst Theodor Gaupp: Lex Frisionum (Breslau, 1832) - also available online
  • Willy Krogmann: Origin and character of the Lex Frisionum , Philologia frisica 62 (1963) 76-103
  • Harald Siems : Studies on Lex Frisionum (Ebelsbach am Main, 1980; preparation of a doctoral thesis, Munich 1979)
  • Karl August Eckhardt and Albrecht Eckhardt: Lex Frisionum (information and translation in German, Hanover, 1982, ISBN 3775251340 ) - also available online
  • Dirk Jan Henstra: The evolution of the money standard in medieval Frisia. A treatise on the history of the systems of money of account in the former Frisia (c.600 - c.1500) (English, doctoral thesis, Reichsuniversität Groningen , 2000, ISBN 9036712025 ) - also available online

Web links