Christian Pfister

“ When Vitiges, the king of the Ostrogoths, ceded Provence to the Franks in 535, the possession of Arles and Marseilles was guaranteed to Childebert by his brothers. Childebert also made a series of expeditions against the Visigoths of Spain; in 542 he took possession of Pampeluna with the help of his brother Clotaire I., and besieged Saragossa, but was forced to retreat. From this expedition he brought back to Paris a precious relic, the tunic of St Vincent, in honour of which he built at the gates of Paris the famous monastery of St Vincent, known later as St Germain-des-Prés. ”

“ In 508 Clovis received at Tours the insignia of the consulship from the eastern emperor, Anastasius, but the title was purely honorific. The last years of his life Clovis spent in Paris, which he made the capital of his kingdom, and where he built the church of the Holy Apostles, known later as the church of St Geneviève. By murdering the petty Frankish kings who reigned at Cambrai, Cologne and other residences, he became sole king of all the Frankish tribes. ”

“ A collection of laws has come down to us bearing the name of these two peoples, the Lex Angliorum et Werinorum, hoc est, Thuringorum. This text is a collection of local customs arranged in the same order as the law of the Ripuarians. Parts of it are based on the Capitulare legi Ribuariae additum of 803, and it seems to have been drawn up in the same conditions and circumstances as the law of the Saxons. There is an edition of this code by Karl von Richthofen in the Mon. Germ. hist., Leges, v. 103. The old opinion that the law originated in south Holland is entirely without foundation. ”

“ The Salic Law is pre-eminently a penal code, which shows the amount of the fines for various offences and crimes, and contains, besides, some civil law enactments, such as the famous chapter on succession to private property (de alode) , which declares that daughters cannot inherit land. The text is filled with valuable information on the state of the family and property in the 6th century, and it is astonishing to find Montesquieu describing the Salic Law as the law of a people ignorant of landed property. ”

“ He endeavoured to maintain at any rate the union of Neustria and Burgundy, but the great Burgundian nobles wished to remain independent, and rose under St Leger (Leodegar) , bishop of Autun, defeated Ebroïn, and interned him in the monastery of Luxeuil (670) . A proclamation was then issued to the effect that each kingdom should keep its own laws and customs, that there should be no further interchange of functionaries between the kingdoms, and that no one should again set up a tyranny like that of Ebroïn. ”

“ Moreover, many persons, even of foreign race, declared themselves willing to live under the Salic Law. The principle of personality, however, gradually gave wary to that of territoriality; and in every district, at least north of the Loire, customs were formed in which were combined in varying proportions Roman law, ecclesiastical law and the various Germanic laws. ”

“ From this time on he ceased to play a prominent part in the affairs of Austrasia. He died in 592, and Childebert received his inheritance without opposition. Gregory of Tours is very indulgent to Guntram, who showed himself on occasions generous towards the church; he almost always calls him “good king Guntram,” and in his writings are to be found such phrases as “good king Guntram took as his servant a concubine Veneranda” (iv. 25) ”

“ Euric’s code was used for all cases between Goths, and between them and Romans; in cases between Romans, Roman law was used. At the instance of Euric’s son, Alaric II., an examination was made of the Roman laws in use among Romans in his dominions, and the resulting compilation was approved in 506 at an assembly at Aire, in Gascony, and is known as the Breviary of Alaric, and sometimes as the Liber Aniani, from the fact that the authentic copies bear the signature of the referendarius Anian. ”

“ After a decisive victory at Vouillé near Poitiers, in which Clovis slew Alaric with his own hand, the whole of the kingdom of the Visigoths as far as the Pyrenees was added to the Frankish empire, with the exception of Septimania, which, together with Spain, remained in possession of Alaric’s grandson Amalaric, and Provence, which was seized by Theodoric and annexed to Italy. ”

“ Each tribe was politically independent; they formed no confederations. Sometimes two or three tribes joined forces to wage a war; but, the struggle over, the bond was broken, and each tribe resumed its isolated life. Waitz holds with some show of probability that the Franks represent the ancient Istaevones of Tacitus, the Alamanni and the Saxons representing the Herminones and the Ingaevones.
Of all these Frankish tribes one especially was to become prominent, the tribe of the Salians. ”

“ He restored to the royal domain the lands that had been usurped by the great nobles and by the church; he maintained at Paris a luxurious, though, from the example he himself set, a disorderly court; he was a patron of the arts, and delighted in the exquisite craftsmanship of his treasurer, the goldsmith St Eloi. ”

“ After the death of Childebert in 595 she resolved to augment the kingdom of Neustria at the expense of Austrasia, and to this end seized some cities near Paris and defeated Theudebert at the battle of Laffaux, near Soissons. ”

“ At the time of Charlemagne, Lombardy was divided into five provinces: Neustria, Austrasia, Aemilia, Littoraria maris and Tuscia. Austrasia was the name given to eastern Lombardy, and Neustria that given to western Lombardy, the part last occupied by the Lombards. ”

“ These are admitted to be Frankish words, and are known as the Malberg glosses. Opinions differ as to the true import of these glosses; some scholars hold that the Salic Law was originally written in the Frankish vernacular, and that these words are remnants of the ancient text, while others regard them as legal formulae such as would be used either by a plaintiff in introducing a suit, or by the judge to denote the exact composition to be pronounced. It is more probable. ”

“ Originally a serving-woman, she inspired the Frankish king, Chilperic I., with a violent passion. At her instigation he repudiated his first wife Audovera, and strangled his second, Galswintha, Queen Brunhilda’s sister. ”

“ He intervened in the nomination of bishops, and at the council of Orleans it was decided that no one, save a son of a priest, could be ordained clerk without the king’s order or the permission of the count. ”

“ Towards 431 he crossed the great Roman road from Bavay to Cologne, which was protected by numerous forts and had long arrested the invasions of the barbarians. He then invaded the territory of Arras, but was severely defeated at Hesdin-le-Vieux by Aetius, the commander of the Roman army in Gaul. ”

“ At an early date compilations were formed in Italy for the use of legal practitioners and jurists. Eberhard, duke and margrave of Rhaetia and Friuli, arranged the contents of the edict with its successive additamenta into a Concordia de singulis causis (829–832) . In the 10th century a collection was made of the capitularies in use in Italy, and this was known as the Capitulare Langobardorum. ”

“ By his able policy Odo succeeded in arresting their progress for some years; but a new vali, Abdur Rahman, a member of an extremely fanatical sect, resumed the attack, reached Poitiers, and advanced on Tours, the holy town of Gaul. ”

“ In this struggle Leger was vanquished; he was besieged in Autun, was forced to surrender and had his eyes put out, and, on the 12th of October 678, he was put to death after undergoing prolonged tortures. The church honours him as a saint. ”

“ The law is a compilation, the various chapters were composed at different periods, and we do not possess the original form of the compilation. Even the most ancient text, that in 65 chapters, contains passages which a comparison with the later texts shows to be interpolations. It is possible that chapter i., De mannire, was taken from a Merovingian capitulary and afterwards placed at the beginning of the Salic Law. ”

“ As pointed out by H. Brunner in his Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte (i. 438) , the Salic Law contains imitations of the Visigothic laws of Euric (466–485) . Finally, chapter xlvii. seems to indicate that the Frankish power extended south of the Loire, since it speaks of men dwelling “trans Legerem” being summoned to the mallus (judicial assembly) and being allowed eighty nights for their journey. On the other hand, it is impossible to place the date of compilation later. ”

“ In 743, however, the mayors decided to appoint a king in the person of Childeric III., who was apparently connected with the Merovingian family. But Childeric was a mere figure-head, and had no power. ”

“ French trans. by M. Théveniu) and Die fränkische Reichs- und Gerichtsverfassung (Weimar, 1876) ; J. J. Thonissen, L’Organisation judiciaire, le droit pénal et la procédure de la lot saligue (2nd ed., Brussels and Paris, 1882) ; P. E. Fahlbeck, La Royauté et la droit royal francs (Lund, 1883) ”