Early Medieval Law

From Winston Black in The Medieval Review 15.06.24...

'In the concluding essay, "The Bright Side of the Knife: Dismemberment in Medieval Europe and the Modern Imagination," Lila Yawn clearly takes the most chances and has the most fun in exploring the topic of medieval wounds and wounding. After a review of graphic and supposedly "medieval" dismemberments in modern movies and literature, such as Monty Python and the Holy Grail, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia, or Pulp Fiction, Yawn poses the simple question of "how medieval cutting up living bodies really was" (218). In response, she gives a whirlwind tour of nearly two millennia of images and descriptions of amputation, dismemberment, fragmentation, and mutilation from Cicero to Thomas Jefferson. In so doing she demonstrates, as many medieval apologists have already noted, that there is no greater amount or degree of dismemberment in the Middle Ages than before or after, but what leads moderns to equate "medieval" with "dismemberment" is the medieval tendency to celebrate dismemberment and put severed body parts on display, be they of the criminal or of the saint.'

The Medieval Review 15.06.24
Kirkham, Anne, and Cordelia Warr, eds. Wounds in the Middle Ages. The History of Medicine in Context. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2014. pp. xvi, 254. $124.95 (hardback). ISBN: 9781409465690 (hardback).
Reviewed by: Winston Black, Assumption College. black@assumption.edu
https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/tmr/article/view/19219/25339

Frisians and their North Sea Neighbours; from the Fifth Century to the Viking Age. Eds. John Hines and Nelleke IJssennagger

An investigation into the mysterious Frisians, drawing together evidence from linguistic, textual and archaeological sources.
From as early as the first century AD, learned Romans knew of more than one group of people living in north-western Europe beyond their Empire's Gallic provinces whose names contained the element that gives us modern "Frisian". These were apparently Celtic-speaking peoples, but that population was probably completely replaced in the course of the convulsions that Europe underwent during the fourth and fifth centuries. While the importance of linguistically Germanic Frisians as neighbours of the Anglo-Saxons, Franks, Saxons and Danes in the centuries immediately following the fall of the Roman Empire in the West is widely recognized, these folk themselves remain enigmatic, the details of their culture and organization unfamiliar to many.
The Frisian population and their lands, including all the coastal communities of the North sea region and their connections with the Baltic shores, form the focal point of this volume, though viewed often through comparison with, or even through the eyes of, their neighbours. The essays present the most up-to-date discoveries, research and interpretation, combining and integrating linguistic, textual and archaeological evidence; they follow the story of the various Frisians through from the Roman Period to the next great period of disruption and change introduced by the Viking Scandinavians.

John Hines is Professor of Archaeology at Cardiff University; Nelleke IJssennagger is Curator of Archaeological and Medieval Collections at the Museum of Friesland.

Contributors: Elzbieta Adamczyk, Iris Aufderhaar, Pieterjan Deckers, Menno Dijkstra, John Hines, Nelleke Ijssennagger, Hauke Jöns, Egge Knol, Jan de Koning, Johan Nicolay, Han Nijdam, Tim Pestell, Peter Schrijver, Arjen Versloot, Gaby Waxenberger, Christiane Zimmermann.

Beneficium is a well-known concept to historians of feudal Middle Ages, but it is not usually connected to Late Roman beneficium as it appears in the Theodosian Code. The paper shows that through barbarian laws and formulae some of the multiple meanings of the word in Roman law survived and that the Frankish idea of beneficium is not unconnected to its ancient forebear.

The Libellus responsionum is accepted by most scholars today as an authentic work of Pope Gregory I, with the exception of its chapter on incest, which is believed to contain a telling interpolation. Doubt concerning the Libellus’s incest chapter can be traced back to the mid-eighth century, when it was cited by St Boniface (and by at least one prominent Frankish or Bavarian aristocrat) as allowing marriage between a nephew and his aunt. Boniface was rightly doubtful that such an allowance could have come from the papacy, and so he challenged the authenticity of the Libellus. But Boniface was in fact misreading the Libellus, whose incest chapter clearly prohibits such marriages. Indeed, there is nothing in the incest chapter that is inconsistent with either Gregory’s thinking or the legal standards of time. Boniface was therefore wrong to doubt the authenticity of the incest chapter, as has been most recent scholarship. The incest chapter does not contain an interpolated passage; rather this passage is herein shown to have been present in the earliest extant version of the Libellus, which (contrary to the conclusions of Paul Meyvaert’s research) must have been the so-called Capitula version. The early transmission of the Capitula version is traced through two seventh-century Italian canon law collections. It was probably via these collections that the various forms of the Libellus entered England and Francia, where Bede and Boniface finally encountered them. An attempt is made to reconstruct the early transmission of the Libellus within the early Anglo-Saxon church. Boniface is shown to have been familiar with multiple versions of the Libellus, at least one of which omitted the offending passage from the incest chapter; this may explain why Boniface continually expressed doubt about the authenticity of that passage throughout the later years of his career on the Continent.

A presentation of the fundamental constitution that preceded dynastic feudalism, with source materials pertaining to ninth-century France and Catalonia, and a consideration of the methods best suited for achieving significant insight in the reconstruction of aristocratic genealogical relationships. Contrary to prevalent opinion, the essential office of count invariably was inherited, especially according to proximity and primogeniture, with the king and the aristocracy acting as a corporation to admit specific and well-understood variations to basic hereditary principles in a sophisticated juristic environment. The investigation follows and develops the methodological lead and substantive findings of the author’s three-part German-area study entitled “Ius hereditarium Encountered.”

Medieval Christian authors frequently employed the Latin word lex (“law”) and its vernacular cognates to mean something akin to the modern notion of “religion.” Like a religion, a lex was the collection of observances that marked a particular people‐group, such as Christians or Muslims. This article examines the category of lex in its historical context revealing both its similarities and differences from modern “religion.” It argues that the category of lex borrowed on Roman ethnography and Patristic exegesis and was inseparable from larger Christian ideas about society, human nature, and political order.

The Edictum Rothari presents a useful window on the mechanics of
Kingship and Law in Lombard Italy. Whilst those who conspire against the
life of the king shall be killed, those who, on the contrary, receive advice
to kill another third party from the king ‘shall not suffer any payment or
trouble’ for ‘the heart of the king is in the hand of God’. Violence at the
heart of the Lombard kingdom is a recurrent theme throughout its’ exist-
ence. This need not, however, colour perceptions of Lombard geo-politics
since endemic competition for power and control is equally noticeable in
comparable so-called ‘successor’ kingdoms. Using narrative and normative texts this chapter will consider the role of violence in Lombard society.

[Do contact me - if you would like a copy of the item for your own personal use so long as you are aware that all rights in the Article are reserved and in particular further distribution is prohibited by the Publisher].

My M.A. thesis in legal history from 2008.
The idea of kinship in the laws of the state's - successors of the Roman Empire.
Main topics : early medieval history of law, early medieval kinship, early medieval family law, leges barbarorum, Barbaricum, Germans, Celts, Europe.

This short Festschrift piece takes up Canon Thirty-six of the Synod of Elvira (c. 306), the first official statement on art by the Christian Church and so of special interest in the history of Early Christian and medieval art, even if it represents Church policy only within the limits of the synod's jurisdiction of Spain.  Rather than read the canon as a simple prohibition against the use of Christian art as idolatrous as has traditionally been done, I conclude that its purpose was to counter a disturbing culture of apostasy and loss of communal identity that had arisen in the Spanish Church through the strong integration of the Christian subculture within the dominant pagan culture (the result of a peaceful period of social integration followed by an unusually bloody persecution).  I also show that Canon Thirty-six was a compromise solution in its silence on the subject of private Christian art.  Never adopted outside of Spain (although many other canons of the Synod of Elvira were), Canon Thirty-six is tacit evidence of a significant point of transition in the development of a distinctly Christian artistic culture, one that was leaving the venerable Judaic precedent of the Second Commandment behind as the Church cautiously accepted its increasingly mainstream status and the powerful socio-political dynamic that was a part of this.

Slavery After Rome, 500-1100 offers a substantially new interpretation of what happened to slavery in Western Europe in the centuries that followed the fall of the Roman Empire. The periods at either end of the early middle ages are associated with iconic forms of unfreedom: Roman slavery at one end; at the other, the serfdom of the twelfth century and beyond, together with, in Southern Europe, a revitalised urban chattel slavery dealing chiefly in non-Christians. How and why this major change took place in the intervening period has been a long-standing puzzle. This study picks up the various threads linking this transformation across the centuries, and situates them within the full context of what slavery and unfreedom were being used for in the early middle ages.

This volume adopts a broad comparative perspective, covering different regions of Western Europe over six centuries, to try to answer the following questions: who might become enslaved and why? What did this mean for them, and for their lords? What made people opt for certain ways of exploiting unfree labour over others in different times and places, and is it possible, underneath all this diversity, to identify some coherent trajectories of historical change?

For three decades, Alberto Ferreiro's renowned bibliography of the Visigoths has been a leading source for scholars, students and all those interested in the history of the late antique and early medieval Iberian Peninsula and the Western Mediterranean. In collaboration with Networks and Neighbours, Professor Ferreiro is now bridging this seminal work in Visigothic Studies into the digital, open-access and non-profit world. This entirely new bibliography, which begins with the year 2016, is freely accessible and provided with up-to-date links to sources, including to full-texts, when available. This online bibliography is intended to be a continuation of the previous ones that Professor Ferreiro published with Brill. His work on that front with Brill has ended, but he wishes to express his support that their staff provided over the years, especially to Julian Deahl, who enthusiastically embraced the series in the first place. In the transition from Brill to N&N, the structure of the bibliography has undergone some modifications, but, in the main, there are not significant changes to the format. Bibliographies are never fully complete for the timeframe that they represent. It is impossible to gather everything, for various reasons. That is why, in this volume, there will be publications from before 2016, works that escaped previous attention.

The bibliography is meant to be interactive and we encourage readers to send suggestions for, information on, and links to additional entries for the Bibliography. We especially ask the support of scholars working in Visigothic studies to bring to our attention any new work of theirs and of colleagues.

Please send details on any pertinent material published between 2016 and 2018 (nothing in press) directly to Professor Ferreiro at beto@spu.edu.

General enquiries may be directed to the N&N editors at: networksandneighbours@gmail.com.

This chapter deals with a paradox: in early-medieval Europe, when legal professionals became scarce, there was a proliferation of legal categories denoting shades of freedom and servility. Drawing on material from early medieval Francia, Italy and Ireland, this chapter attempts an explanation. Status, whether free or unfree, was meant to be stable across generations, but most of the time its connection with either work or terms of tenure was fairly tenuous. Status came to the fore in moments of particular tension occasioned by increased lordly demands. It could then become the object of bitter contestation and redefinition. The proliferation of ‘grey-area’ categories that gave themselves an air of antiquity and legality, despite contemporary learned insistence on an absolute distinction between free and unfree, opened up a space of contestation and negotiation between lords and peasants as well as between peasants and other peasants.

This chapter explores the socioeconomic role and nature of apiculture in the post-Roman Latin West, assessing the scarce archaeological evidence, the anecdotal mentions in literary sources, and the unexpectedly thorough legislation of the successor kingdoms. With this scant information it is possible to reach three preliminary conclusions. First, that honey and wax were probably more relevant in the early Medieval centuries than in the preceding Roman centuries. Second, that there was a shift in the legal status of bees from wild to domesticated animals, and thus considered private property of the beekeeper. And third, that while beekeeping and honey hunting remained a mostly rural activity, it is possible that beekeeping flourished in the less-dense urban contexts of the post-Roman centuries, perhaps playing a role in the emerging garden economy of the period.

Киево-Печерский патерик, рассказывая о чудесах Григория Чудотворца, монаха Киево-Печерского монастыря, приводит сведения, которые отражают правовые реалии Древней Руси последней трети 11 века. В одной из историй о Григории упоминается о практике повешения виновного по решению суда и о возможности, при наличии достаточных средств, откупиться от смерти. Обычно это понимается как свидетельство о существовании смертной казни. Есть все основания полагать, что такая практика сложилась (или получила широкое распространение) после отмены «убиения за голову» (убийства из мести) князьями Ярославичами. Подобная мера воздействия на убийц является промежуточной формой между кровной местью и смертной казнью в обычном их понимании.

One of the parts of the church literary monument about monks’ life in Kievo-Pechersky monastery shows us the lows reality of the end of 11 century. In the tale about St. Grigoriy the Wondermaker it is mentioned about the hanging of a guilty person and a possibility to pay of a blood penalty. It, what was considered by scientists, is a mention about capital punishment. But there is a good reason to believe that such a practice appeared after princes Yaroslavitchi cancelled the blood feud. Such a compensatory action against murders is the intermediary form between blood fued and death penalty in their usial sense.

Ключевые слова: Киево-Печерский патерик, кровная месть, смертная казнь, повешение, выкуп жизни, головщина, вира, Malus domestica Borkh.
Key words: Kievo-Pechersky Paterik, the Blood feud, the Death penalty, fine, wergild, hanging, Malus domestica Borkh.

La verdadera relación del Cid histórico con la religión cristiana ha sido poco estudiada en la actualidad. Se da por cierto lo que han dicho los eruditos de siglos pasados, quienes presentan al Cid como héroe de una reconquista religiosa. Al reconsiderar este aspecto fundamental, conviene estudiar minuciosamente dos episodios: el de las arcas de arena en el Poema de Mío Cid, y el del intercambio de cartas con el conde Ramón Berenguer en la Historia Roderici. La revisión de dichos episodios arrojará nueva luz sobre este problema.

Connecting earth and heaven, the oath constitutes the keystone that ensures the Medieval legal order. In the Lombard Southern Italy, this arrangement experiences some significant deviations from the Edictum, evident in the judicial practice and in the evolution of the Statute law. Its central role is confirmed by the peace agreements and by the political and constitutional dynamics.

Abstract di Tesi di laurea magistrale in scienze storiche che intende proporre uno studio sul fenomeno della deposizioni nell'Italia longobarda e più in generale nell'Europa altomedievale, al quale si accompagna anche uno studio comparativo con alcuni casi franchi selezionati di deposizioni.
Master's Degree thesis in Historical Sciences.

Истцы, соприсяжники, послухи на древнерусском процессе (11-13 вв.) // Древняя Русь. Вопросы медиевистики. 2017. №. 3(69) /
Plaintiffs, compurgators, witnesses in Old Russian litigation (11th-13th centuries), in  DREVNYAYA RUS’. VOPROSY MEDIEVISTIKI (OLD RUSSIA. THE QUESTIONS OF MIDDLE AGES). 2017. No/ 3(69)



Тезисы докладов участников IX международной конференции «Комплексный подход в изучении Древней Руси».
Brief outline reports of the 9th International conference “The Integrated Approach to the Old Russia Studies” are published in the journal.

Methods for resolving cross-border legal claims between two or more kingdoms appear in various early Irish legal texts. The basic models of cairde, rechtge, and other types of inter-territorial law will be illustrated using a variety of legal texts, including Bretha Cairdi, Slán nAitire Cairde, Críth Gablach, and the tract on the distribution of cró and díbad. By examining the general models of these kinds of inter-territorial dispute settlement, we can begin to understand these methods as cohesive legal institutions and therein provide a premise for further research into inter-territorial affairs in early medieval Ireland.

Развитие княжеского суда в первой половине – середине XI в. происходит посредством распространения норм специальной княжеской защиты, «княжого права» на все более широкие категории населения. Основным орудием этой защиты было установление высокого возмещения за ущерб, нанесенный этим лицам.
Примерно с середины XI в. развитие суда князя определялось распространением на свободное население мер социального регулирования, применяемых в отношении социально приниженных категорий, находящихся в зависимости от князя  – смердов.
«Продажи», штрафы в пользу княжеской власти, взимаются первоначально лишь со смердов за преступления, совершенные в их среде (как предполагал А. Е. Пресняков). Позже эти взыскания распространяются и на преступления, совершаемые прочими категориями населения (кроме рабов), и с кого бы они ни взимаются, зовутся одинаково — «продажи». Полагаем, что включение статей о «продажах» в состав второй части «Правды Ярославичей» означало, что эти штрафы стали взиматься уже не только с княжеских смердов. Впоследствии и древние выплаты «за обиду» принимают характер «продаж», финансовая заинтересованность способствует распространению княжеской юрисдикции.
The development of the princely court in the first half - the middle of XI century takes place through the distribution of special rules to protect the prince (i.e. "Right of prince") on wider categories of people. The main instrument for this protection was a high compensation for injuries to these persons.
From the middle of the 11th century penalties imposed on “smerds”, applied to the free population as well. This is the case of development of the princely court . The term smerds we understand as the description of the social category that is dependent on the prince (as a population of princely domain). Prodazha (monetary penalty), the fines in favor of the prince’s power, were originally charged only from smerds for the crimes committed in their field (as cautiously suggested A. E. Presnyakov). Later, these penalties apply to offenses committed by other categories of people (except smerds), and no matter from whom they were levied, they were called the same – prodazha. We believe that the inclusion of articles on the prodazha in the second part of “Pravda Yaroslava” meant that these fines have become charged not only with the princely smerds. Subsequently ancient payments “for the offense of” take the character of “sales” financial interest promotes princely jurisdiction.

This paper will investigate the practice of divorce among the various Germanic and Gallo-Roman inhabitants of the Frankish Kingdom during the Merovingian period. Drawing upon the numerous legal codes and formularies established by these peoples, the main focus of this paper will be on the motives for the dissolution of a marriage, and the terms of separation. Through the use of historic examples, it will attempt to gauge the acceptance of divorce among these various peoples, and the effectiveness of any punishments prescribed for this act as a prevention tool against the breaking of marital vows. This study will also compare the approaches of these Germanic groups and the Catholic Church to divorce in the Merovingian period, and attempt to establish how political interactions between the two parties may have affected the practical application of their codes in the event of a separation. It is tentatively suggested that there was a degree of give and take in the application of these laws throughout the Merovingian period, as political necessity often trumped spiritual well-being.

Urban aristocracies of the early medieval northwestern Iberian Peninsula are still poorly known. Focusing on law specialists, this paper offers a prosopographic study of a group of lay judges who settled disputes in the city of León during the first half of the tenth century. The role played by their names as identity markers, their social position as landowners and their family ties will be considered in the analysis.

Las aristocracias urbanas de la Alta Edad Media en el noroeste de la península ibérica son aún mal conocidas. Tomando como ejemplo a los especialistas del Derecho, ofreceremos aquí el estudio prosopográfico de un grupo de jueces laicos que resolvieron disputas en la ciudad de León durante la primera mitad del siglo X. Se analizará el papel jugado por su antroponimia como marcador de identidad, su posición social como terratenientes y sus lazos familiares.

In the modern world criminal law defines social conduct, and bans and punishes threatening, harming, or otherwise endangering the health, safety, and moral welfare of people. It differs from civil law, which is more focused on dispute resolution and on the compensation of victims than on punishment. However, although this division between criminal and civil law came about in the Middle Ages, it was a relatively late development in medieval law, after the diffusion of Roman law in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, with the earlier medieval period seeing offences, which we today think of as crimes, being paid for through fines and compensation rather than punished. Despite this, there was a small number of offences that were regarded as ‘unemendable’, that is, they were thought so serious that the perpetrator had to pay for them in life or limb. This paper investigates crime and its relationship to wergeld in the early medieval period, comparing and contrasting terminology, language and practice across the North Sea region.

Dans cet article il s’agit de la figure du juge dans deux œuvres du Sévillan : les Sentences et les Synonymes. Dans les Synonymes Isidore décrit le juge mauvais et immoral. L’homme devise avec la Raison et se plaint des juges vénaux, partiaux et incompétents. La Raison l’engage à se comporter à l’opposé. Dans ses Sentences Isidore montre l’image du juge idéal et parfait. Un tel juge doit être incorruptible, compétent, intrépide : ce sont des qualités bien connues de l’Antiquité. Mais Isidore est le premier qui insiste aussi sur la piété et sur la miséricorde des juges. Selon lui le bon juge doit suivre non seulement les lois mais avant tout les commandements chrétiens. C’est Dieu qui l’aidera à résoudre les litiges. En outre la miséricorde est aussi très importante, parce que le juge d’Isidore ne déteste pas le criminel mais le crime, et il a pitié pour l’homme qui a fait un faux pas. Un tel juge, qui est pieux et charitable et qui n’est pas séduit par les cadeaux et par la faveur des nobles, obtient la vie éternelle et le paradis.

Jews, perpetrators of sacrilege and ducal peace. On the institution of ruler’s protection in Piast Poland.
The article is an attempt to contextualize an institution of Piast rule, in the oldest Polish customary law called “lordly peace” or “the lord’s hand,” and in charters referred to as “the duke’s protection.” It is proposed that the description of Duke Mieszko III’s first Cracow reign included into Chronica Polonorum by Master Vincentius at the turn of 13th century should be considered an important evidence of the ducal peace in Poland. It clearly alludes to the concept of peace as a tool for preventing violence towards those enjoying ruler’s protection. Having analyzed the chronicled examples of punishing the offenders of Jews and other foreigners along with the information about punishing in exactly the same way those committing sacrilege, the author points to analogies between the Piast peace and Western institutions of king’s peace, mundeburdium regis or cyninges handgrið for instance. The inquiry clearly proves conceptual closeness between ducal peace and those phenomena manifesting in connection with the public sphere or monarch’s domain, and most evidently in the involvement of ruler’s officials as well as bishops in maintaining peaces/protections. The observed analogies allow one to conclude that ducal peace in Poland, at least at some stage, was influenced by Western patterns of royal power and justice. This in turn led the author to question the notion favoured in modern historiography, that ducal peace (or mir) as a whole was a relic of the so-called tribal organization.

“Beheading at Vercellae: What is Jerome, Ep. 1, and why does it matter?,” in Gernot Michael Müller, ed. Zwischen Alltagskommunikation und literarischer Identitätsbildung. Kulturgeschichtliche Aspekte lateinischer Epistolographie in Spätantike und Frühmittelalter "Roma aeterna. Beiträge zu Spätantike und Frühmittelalter"  (Steiner-Verlag: Stuttgart: 2018): 145-67