The Visigothic code

by Unknown

The “notaries” herein referred to were secretaries, shorthand writers or amanuenses.

This law is of Roman origin, and the amputation of a finger or a hand, while not unusual under that system, was a more prominent feature of Greek penal legislation, from which the Romans, at the time of the adoption of the Law of the Twelve Tables, borrowed many of their punishments.—[Ed.]

[42] The penalty above described for an offence of such gravity as highway robbery, seems to be grossly inadequate. It is, however, a peculiarity of the Visigothic Code that, for many breaches of the law which we class as misdemeanors, it authorizes punishments generally inflicted for the commission of felony, and vice versa. Perhaps the courts construed the expression “complete legal satisfaction,” to mean the sentence usually imposed for theft. There can be little doubt that the obscurity of the language which often characterizes the edicts of the Forum Judicum, would, under a less strict and impartial judicial system, have offered many opportunities for the escape of an offender from the legal consequences of his crime.—[Ed.]

[43] Between one twelfth and one fourteenth of an acre. The great Roman highways, portions of which are still in good preservation in some of the provinces of the Spanish Peninsula, and especially in Estremadura, were usually from eleven to fifteen feet wide; and, with the space required by the Visigothic laws to be left unenclosed for the passage of cattle, were sometimes sixty to a hundred feet in their entire width.

The Visigothic surface measures were partly Roman, partly Gallic, and partly Gothic. The standard, the Jugerum .622 acre, was older than the Roman Republic; the Arepennis, equal to half a Jugerum, was used by the Gauls; and the Aratrum, or “ploughland,” corresponded to an area of a hundred and twenty acres, approximately, and is of Northern derivation. The Aratrum was divided into “oxgates,” or “oxlands,” being as much arable soil as could be tilled by an ox, usually fifteen acres, but varying according to country and custom. For purposes of description, the latter term, evidently an importation of the Danes or Saxons, is frequently employed in the ancient English works on tenures; particularly where the latter were of the classes designated as “base,” and “in gross”; as well as in conveyances and leases, where absolute accuracy of boundaries was either unnecessary or unattainable. The divisions of “ploughland” and “oxgate” were used much more recently in Scotland than in England.—[Ed.]

[44] The reader cannot have failed to remark the striking analogy existing between the laws of the Forum Judicum relating to strays, and our own statutory enactments on the same subject. Indeed, aside from some of the penalties imposed, and the amount of compensation allowed, the regulations are, in many instances, almost identical. Unlike a great part of the Visigothic legislation, where trespass, and other violations of the law of real property are involved, few of the provisions concerning strays are derived from Roman sources. Most of them are unquestionably survivals of the ancient legal traditions of the wandering Gothic tribes, the great bulk of whose wealth consisted of flocks and herds of sheep and cattle.—[Ed.]

[45] This law was evidently intended to repeal the preceding one, although this is not specifically stated. Its enactment, as is set forth in the preamble, was demanded by the constantly increasing number of marriages between freeborn persons and slaves. The degradation attending such unions does not seem to have been regarded by the masses with the same prejudice that actuated the law-making power, whose interest it was to rigidly maintain the barriers of caste.—[Ed.]

[46] The great value of slaves, as articles of personal property, and the manifest sympathy of the people with them, seem to have prompted the enactment of this law, by which the inhabitants of an entire district were to be turned into a corps of detectives for the capture of fugitives; and the severest penalties were denounced against all, irrespective of age, sex, social standing, or rank, for non-compliance with its provisions. The statement that no community, large or small, was without a number of fugitive slaves, who, sure of the assistance of their neighbors, scarcely took the trouble to conceal themselves, indicates that human servitude was not popular with the majority of the people of the Iberian Peninsula. It would appear, also, that the magistrates, whose executive delinquencies rendered them liable to the same punishment as the offenders themselves, were frequently loth to execute the law. The marked consideration always shown the clergy by their legislative brethren, is again disclosed by the amusing inequality of penalties prescribed for the neglect of official duties. There is a great and painful difference between the limitation to one meal a day, for a month (a privation, it is hardly necessary to add, which might be readily evaded) and two hundred lashes, laid on vigorously with a scourge. This law gives us a curious insight into life in those times, and one that could have been derived from no other source; and it is especially instructive in the information it affords concerning the feelings entertained by all, except the comparatively few members of the privileged classes, towards those in the servile condition.—[Ed.]

[47] The military organization of the Visigoths bore a striking resemblance to those of modern armies, and coincided, in only a few unimportant particulars, with that of the Roman legion. Division by means of the decimal system, popular among all semi-barbarian races on account of its simplicity, and the facility of arrangement it affords, was universally employed. The commander-in-chief, styled in the Code, præpositus hostis, was usually a dux, or duke; the lieutenant-general a comes, or count. The commander of a thousand men, corresponding to our colonel, was denominated tiuphadus; next in rank came the quingentarius, who had charge of a battalion of five hundred; then the centurion, and the decurion, in command of a company of a hundred, and a squad of ten men, respectively. The conscription officers were called compulsores exercitus, and the quarter-masters or commissaries, annonarii.

This military gradation was also maintained in civil life, in time of peace. The dux was the governor of the province in which he lived; the comes, the governor of the chief city of his district; the tiuphadus was responsible for the behavior of the thousand men, and their families, over whom he exercised control. All these, with several other civil functionaries, had the privilege of holding court, and were invested by the law with the title of judge: “judicis nomine censeantur ex lege.” See Code II, 1–25.—[Ed.]