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Several Latin law codes of the Germanic peoples written in the Early Middle Ages (also known as ''leges barbarorum'' "laws of the barbarians") survive, dating to between the 5th and 9th centuries. They are influenced by Roman law, ecclesiastical law, and earlier tribal customs. Germanic law was codified in writing under the influence of Roman law; previously it was held in the memory of designated individuals who acted as judges in confrontations and meted out justice according to customary rote, based on careful memorization of precedent. Among the Franks they were called ''rachimburgs''. "Living libraries, they were law incarnate, unpredictable and terrifying."〔Rouche, "Private life conquers state and society", in Paul Veyne, ed. ''A History of Private Life: I. From Pagan Rome to Byzantium'' (Harvard University Press) 1987:421ff. This paragraph follows Rouche.〕 When justice is oral, the judicial act is personal and subjective. Power, whose origins were at once magical, divine and military, as Michel Rouche has pointed out,〔Rouche 1987:421.〕 was exercised jointly by the "throne-worthy" elected king and his free warrior companions. Oral law sufficed as long as the warband was not settled in one place. Germanic law made no provisions for the public welfare, the ''res publica'' of Romans. The language of all these continental codes was Latin; the only known codes drawn up in any Germanic language were the Anglo-Saxon laws, beginning with the Laws of Æthelberht (7th century). In the 13th century customary Saxon law was codified in the vernacular as the ''Sachsenspiegel''. All these laws may be described in general as codes of governmental procedure and tariffs of compositions. They all present somewhat similar features with Salic law, the best-known example, but often differ from it in the date of compilation, the amounts of fines, the number and nature of the crimes, the number, rank, duties and titles of the officers, etc. In Germanic Europe in the Early Middle Ages, every man was tried according to the laws of his own race, whether Roman, Salian or Ripuarian Frank, Frisian, Burgundian, Visigoth, Bavarian etc.〔As Agobard of Lyons put it, pleading for a unified legal system in the Frankish Empire, "Of five men sitting or walking together none will have the same law as his fellow."〕 A number of separate codes were drawn up specifically to deal with cases between ethnic Romans. These codes differed from the normal ones that covered cases between Germanic peoples, or between Germanic people and Romans. The most notable of these are the ''Lex Romana Visigothorum'' or ''Breviary of Alaric'' (506), the ''Lex Romana Curiensis'' and the ''Lex Romana Burgundionum''. ==Tacitus== Tacitus in his ''Germania'' gives an account of the legal practice of the Germanic peoples of the 1st century. Tacitus reports that criminal cases were put before the thing (tribal assembly). Lighter offenses were regulated with damages (paid in livestock), paid in part to the victim (or their family) and in part to the king.〔"In lighter transgressions too the penalty is measured by the fault, and the delinquents upon conviction are condemned to pay a certain number of horses or cattle. Part of this mulct accrues to the King or the community, part to him whose wrongs are vindicated, or to his next kindred." (trans. Gordon)〕 The death penalty is reserved for two kinds of capital offenses: military treason or desertion was punished by hanging, and corporal infamy 〔 ''ignavos et imbelles at corpore infames''. Gordon translates ''corpore infames'' as "unnatural prostitutes", another interpretation is "corporal infamation" (rape). Thus Tacitus may refer to rape, even though scholars have speculated that "corporal infamation" could refer to the catholic view of male homosexuality. See David F. Greenberg, ''The construction of homosexuality'', p. 242 f. Consequently some scholars have speculated that the later Germanic concept of Old Norse ''argr'', Langobardic ''arga'', may combine the meanings "effeminate, cowardly, homosexual", see Jaan Puhvel, 'Who were the Hittite ''hurkilas pesnes''?' in: A. Etter (eds.), ''O-o-pe-ro-si'' (FS Risch), Walter de Gruyter, 1986, p.154.〕 (rape) by throwing the condemned into a bog. The difference in punishment is explained by the idea that "glaring iniquities" must be exposed in plain sight, while "effeminacy and pollution" should best be buried and concealed.〔"In the assembly it is allowed to present accusations, and to prosecute capital offences. Punishments vary according to the quality of the crime. Traitors and deserters they hang upon trees. Cowards, and sluggards, and unnatural prostitutes they smother in mud and bogs under an heap of hurdles. Such diversity in their executions has this view, that in punishing of glaring iniquities, it behoves likewise to display them to sight; but effeminacy and pollution must be buried and concealed." (trans. Gordon)〕 Minor legal disputes were settled on a day-to-day basis by elected chiefs assisted by elected officials.〔"In the same assemblies are also chosen their chiefs or rulers, such as administer justice in their villages and boroughs. To each of these are assigned an hundred persons chosen from amongst the populace, to accompany and assist him, men who help him at once with their authority and their counsel." (trans. Gordon)〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Ancient Germanic law」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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