[56] Pœnitentiale Cummeani, vi. 29 (Wasserschleben, Bussordungen der abendländischen Kirche, p. 480). Pœnit. Pseudo-Theodori, xxi. 12 (ibid. p. 587).
[57] Canons enacted under Edgar, Modus imponendi pœnitentiam, 4, 11 (Ancient Laws and Institutes of England, p. 405 sq.).
[58] Lecky, History of European Morals, ii. 66. Mr. Lecky states (ibid. ii. 66 sq.) that the Council of Illiberis excluded for ever from the communion a master who killed his slave. I have only been able to find the following enactment made by a Council held at Illiberis in the beginning of the fourth century:—“Si qua domina furore zeli accensa flagris verberaverit ancillam suam, ita ut in tertium diem animam cum cruciatu effundat; eo quod incertum sit, voluntate, an casu occiderit; si voluntate, post septem annos; si casu, post quinquennii tempora, acta legitima pœnitentia, ad communionem placuit admitti” (Concilium Eliberitanum, ch. 5 [Labbe-Mansi, op. cit. ii. 6]).
Beyond a law of Constantine, to the effect that a master who put his slave to death in a non-judicial way, was to be punished as a murderer,[59] and a reiteration of some previous enactments, the Christian emperors seem to have done little to guard the life of the slave. Whilst it was provided that any master who applied to his slave certain atrocious tortures with the object of killing him should be deemed a manslayer, it was emphatically said that no charge whatever should be brought against him if the slave died under moderate punishment, or under any punishment not inflicted with the intention of killing him.[60] Arcadius and Honorius even passed a law refusing protection to a slave who should fly to a church for refuge from his master;[61] but this law was, in the West, followed by regulations of an opposite character.[62] The barbarian invasions certainly did not improve the condition of slaves, and in Teutonic countries it was only by slow degrees that the introduction and spread of a higher civilisation exercised its humanising influence on the relation between master and slave. The Visigothic Code prohibited a person from killing any of his slaves who had committed no offence.[63] According to the Capitularia, the master had to pay a penalty for causing the death of a guiltless slave, provided that he died at once; but if he survived the injury only a day or two, the master was not punishable for his deed, because the slave was his pecunia.[64] In a later period any intentional killing of an innocent slave was punished by law, but the law probably remained a dead letter.[65] In the thirteenth century Beaumanoir, the French jurisconsult, could write:—“Plus cortoise est nostre coustume envers les sers que en autre païs, car li segneur poent penre de lor sers, et à mort et à vie, toutes les fois qu’il lor plest, et tant qu’il lor plet.”[66] Nay, even in quite modern times, in Christian countries, where negro slavery prevailed as a recognised institution, the life of the slave was only inadequately protected by their laws.
[59] Codex Theodosianus, ix. 12. 1.
[60] Ibid. ix. 12. Lecky, History of European Morals, ii. 62 sq.
[61] Codex Theodosianus, ix. 45. 3.
[62] Babington, The Influence of Christianity in promoting the Abolition of Slavery in Europe, p. 37. Biot, De l’abolition de l’esclavage ancien en Occident, p. 239.
[63] Lex Wisigothorum, vi. 5. 12.
[64] Capitularia, vi. 11 (Georgisch, Corpus Juris Germanici antiqui, col. 1513). This law is borrowed from Exodus, xxi. 20 sq.