The Edictum Rothari (also Edictus Rothari or Edictum Rotharis) was the first written compilation of Lombard law, codified and promulgated 22 November 643 by King Rothari. The custom (cadarfada) of the Lombards, according to Paul the Deacon, the Lombard historian, had been held in memory before this. Now it was promulgated in Latin, a very vulgar and coarse Latin, by the king with the advice and consent of his council and his army. The Lombards (Latin Langobardi, from which the alternative name Longobards found in older English texts), were a Germanic people originally from northern Europe that entered the late Roman Empire. ... Law (from the late Old English lagu of probable North Germanic origin) in politics and jurisprudence, is a set of rules or norms of conduct which mandate, proscribe or permit specified relationships among people and organizations, intended to provide methods for ensuring the impartial treatment of such people, and provide... November 22 is the 326th day (327th on leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Events Rothari, King of the Lombards, issues the Lombard law code. ... Rothari of the house of Arodus was king of the Lombards from 636 to 652; previously he had been duke of Brescia. ... Paul the Deacon (c. ... Latin is an ancient Indo-European language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. ...

The Usage

The Edict, in 388 chapters, was primitive compared with other Germanic legislation of the time. It was also comparatively late, for the Franks, Visigoths, and Anglo-Saxons had all compiled codices of law long before. Unlike the Breviarium Alaricianum of Alaric II, it was mostly Germanic tribal law dealing with wergelds, inheritance, and duels, not a code of Roman laws. Despite its Latin, it was not a Roman product. Unlike the near-contemporary Forum Iudicum, it was not influenced by canon law. Its only dealings with ecclesiastic matters was a prohibition on violence in churches. The Edict gives military authority to the dukes and gives civil authority to a schulthais (or reeve) in the countryside and a castaldus (or gastald) in the city. For other uses, see Franks (disambiguation). ... The Visigoths, originally Tervingi, or Vesi (the noble ones), one of the two main branches of the Goths (of which the Ostrogothi were the other), were one of the loosely-termed Germanic peoples that disturbed the late Roman Empire. ... AD The Anglo-Saxons were culturally-related Germanic tribes from Angeln, a peninsula in what is now Lower Saxony in northwestern Germany. ... Alaric II, also known as Alarik, Alarich, and Alarico in Spanish or Alaricus in Latin (d. ... Weregild (Alternative spellings: wergild, wergeld, weregeld, etc. ... For other uses, see inheritance (disambiguation). ... A duel or duel of honour is a formalised type of armed combat in which two individuals participate. ... In Western culture, canon law is the law of the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches. ... A reeve (Old English gerefa) was an Anglo-Saxon official of high rank, exerting local jurisdiction. ...

The Edict was written down by one Ansoald, not a bishop or lawyer, but a scribe of Lombard origin. It was affirmed by a gairethinx convened by Rothari in 643. The gairethinx was a gathering of the army who passed the law by clashing their spears on their shields in old Germanic fashion, a fitting passing for so Germanic a Latin code. The gairethinx was Lombard ceremony in which edicts and laws were affirmed by the army. ...

The Edict makes no references to public life, the governance of trade, the duties of a citizen; instead it is minutely concerned with compensations for wrongs, a feature familiar from the wergeld of Anglo-Saxons, and the defence of property rights. Though Lombard women were always in some status of wardship to the males of the family, and though a freeborn Lombard woman who married an aldius (half-free) or a slave might be slain or sold by her male kin, the respect, amounting to taboo, that was owed to a freeborn Lombard woman was notable: if any one should "place himself in the way" of a free woman or girl, or injure her, he must pay nine hundred solidi, an immense sum. For comparison, if any one should "place himself in the way" of a free man he must pay him twenty solidi— if he had not done him any bodily injury— and in similar cases involving another man's slave or handmaid or aldius, he must pay twenty solidi to the lord, the price for copulation with another man's slave. Roman slaves were of lower value in these matters than Germanic slaves "of the nations". Weregild (Alternative spellings: wergild, wergeld, weregeld, etc. ... A taboo is a strong social prohibition (or ban) relating to any area of human activity or social custom declared as sacred and forbidden; breaking of the taboo is usually considered objectionable or abhorrent by society. ... Solidus (Latin) is the name of a Roman coin during the Roman Empire. ...

Physical injuries were all minutely catalogued, with a price for each tooth, finger or toe. Property was a concern: many laws dealt specially with injuries to an aldius or to a household slave. A still lower class, according to their assigned values, were the agricultural slaves.

In the laws of inheritance, illegitimate offspring had rights as well as legitimate ones. No father could disinherit his son except for certain grievous crimes. Donations of property were made in the presence of an assembly called the thing, which gave rise to the barbarous Latin verb thingare, to grant or donate before witnesses. If a man shall wish to thingare his property, he must make the gairethinx ("spear donation") in the presence of free men.

Slaves might be emancipated in various ways, but there were severe laws for the pursuit and restoration of fugitives. In judicial procedure, a system of compurgation prevailed, as well as the wager of battle.

The general assembly of freemen continued to add ritual solemnity to important acts, such as the enactment of new laws or the selection of a king.

Lombard law governed Lombards solely, it must be remembered. The Roman population expected to live under long-codified Roman law. It was declared that foreigners who came to settle in Lombard territories were expected to live according to the laws of the Lombards, unless they obtained from the king the right to live according to some other law. Roman Law is the legal system of ancient Rome. ...

See also

• Ine
• Lex Salica
• Breviarium Alaricianum
• Forum Iudicum
• Corpus Juris Civilis
• Codex Theodosianus

Ine (died 728) was the King of Wessex from 688 to 726, noted particularly for his code of laws. ... The King of the Franks, in the midst of the Military Chiefs who formed his Treuste, or armed Court, dictates the Salic Law (Code of the Barbaric Laws). ... Justinian I depicted on a mosaic in the church of San Vitale, Ravenna, Italy The Corpus Juris Civilis (Body of Civil Law) is a fundamental work in jurisprudence, issued from 529 to 534 by order of Justinian I, Byzantine Emperor. ... The Codex Theodosianus (Book of Theodosius) was a compilation of the laws of the Roman Empire under the Christian emperors since 312. ...

Sources

• Oman, Charles. The Dark Ages 476-918. London, 1914.
• Paul the Deacon, Historia LangobardorumIV.xlii ( English translation by William Dudley Foulke, 1907)

Sir Charles William Chadwick Oman (Jan. ... London — containing the City of London — is the capital of the United Kingdom and of England and a major world city. With over seven million inhabitants (Londoners) in Greater London area, it is amongst the most densely populated areas in Western Europe. ... 1914 (MCMXIV) was a common year starting on Thursday. ...

External links

• Illumination of a manuscript of the Edict of Rothari.