Ancient Germanic law

Germanic tribal rights are not a contemporary term for the legal records in the Germanic successor kingdoms of the Roman Empire from the mid-5th century to the 9th century. In the Germanic tribal rights fused with varying weight Germanic, Roman and Christian ideas of law. The records are written in Latin interspersed with Germanic and expressions.

Formation

Since the mid-5th century originated in the Germanic successor kingdoms of the Roman Empire right records which were marked by the encounter of the Germanic pagan legal culture with the Roman -Christian. Due to the drafting of laws in Latin as well as the visible interaction between the Roman law on the one hand and Germanic tribal law, on the other hand, the records are not to be considered as an independent and original right. The use of the word is merely referring to the Germanic origin of the texts under Germanic rule.

The tribes of the Migration period ( Goths, Vandals, Franks, and others) originally were no ethnic units, but were intentional communities of clan associations that could dissolve in times of change or even newly composed. You faced as an actual state people, the Romans, or novels, which are mainly understood as Catholic Christians from the often pagan or Arian Teutons separated. This religious contrast -induced long time, a feeling of alienation between the ethnic groups.

However, the Roman and Germanic legal culture were the latest with the Germanic conquest of (former) Roman soil no longer isolated from each other; the invaders had to deal with the law of the majority population, which permeated their first oral tradition tribal rights more and more. This, however, was no longer the "classical juristic law ", but the vulgar created by the late antique cultural change, in which the humanities abstraction was abandoned in favor of simplifying terminology and assumed that some common-law trains - what to adapt the vulgar by the Germanic tribal society much customary law embossed contributed not a little.

Overview list

The most important Germanic tribal rights are in order of creation:

According to the Germanic personality principle ( in contrast to the territoriality principle assumes that an individual is subjected to that territory or legal system to which it belongs personally, whether as a tribal member or a citizen ) emerged in addition to the tribal rights and law codes, the existing the vulgar from the final phase of the Western Roman Empire for the attention of the autochthonous population Romanesque confirmed:

Character

The stamp of verschriftlichten laws essentially follows a threefold division: Common Law ( " Civil Law " ) and rules of the respective rulers ( " State law " ), along with rules for position of the Church ( " Church Law "). In the texts of both the temporal power of the new claim rule as well as the peace- will ( Pax Romana ) as the successor of the Roman -Christian Empire is tangible. The replacement of archaic customary rights as revenge and feud customs between individuals and families through obrigkeitlich normalized Criminal catalogs understood as an expression of civilization claim to the Germanic elite who experienced an increasing Romanization (takeover of the Vulgar Latin and the Catholic faith ). However, they were not codifications with a comprehensive or even a concluding character, but usually only met regulations as required, to the extent rights violations just required sanctions or satisfactions.

Exist between the various Germanic tribal rights points of contact or relationships where such and any common origins are not fully understood. The influence of Roman law is among those tribes most, as federates ( allies ) had been settled within the Empire: Goths and Burgundians. Their military kings were also imperial magistrates, their legislative power was derived from the imperial power, and thus of Roman legal norms from. The same applies to the Franks. Although she never left completely to their original area of ​​settlement, but also settled on Reich territory and conquered later, significant parts of the former Roman Gaul and finally Italy, so they invaded areas where Roman law was still considered a considerable extent. The Frankish legal records at the beginning of the 9th century form the end of the early medieval tribal rights. With the decline of the Frankish rule sets from the written tradition of law, and shall not begin until the 12th century, with the right mirrors and municipal law books, which fixed the now territorially distinct common law.

The laws on the initiative of the Germanic princes. In this tension was the outdated notion that the prince saved the already -given right and could only improve it in cooperation and consent of the military and clerical elite; any Germanic prince had his dominion in a kind of "social contract " new reasons why the entire agreement had more personal than institutional character and barely survived a change of rulers. In the written law itself, however, manifested the insight acquired from their Germanic successors of the Roman authorities that the right with increasing social and state compression consists not only of the people out as " customary law ", but also an expression of institutional (ie, public or ecclesiastical ) power creation.

The law works govern the coexistence of novels and Germans, purchase and donation, wills, loans, certificates and much more. They provide a multifaceted picture of the legal concepts in the early Middle Ages and are therefore an important source of historical knowledge. However, they also make high demands on their interpretation. Especially in the Alemannic, Burgundian and Lombard texts Germanic concepts have to be developed, and even behind clearly Roman- Germanic legal terms may be thinking right. In addition, they do not necessarily reflect the legal reality and its normative force and actual effect are elusive.

Terminology

The subsequent collective terms for the Germanic legal records are part of the scientific and political history: After the start of the reception of the learned Roman law in Europe in the 13th century spoke the humanist lawyers of Leges Barbarorum ( barbarian laws), both because their - compared with classical Roman law texts - corrupt Latin, on the other hand to illustrate the rediscovered in the Middle Ages and has become a major Corpus iuris civilis of Justinian I to the inferiority of this legal culture over that. The choice of the word barbarian was deliberately derogatory, because the Germanic tribes were seen as destroyers of the Roman empire and the ancient culture. The adding of romance and national-democratic ideas of the pre-March German literature of the 19th century, however, they evaluated positively as a Germanic people's rights by "the people" was to them as bearers of a mostly common law legal culture. Differentiated was simultaneous or only slightly younger designation as tribal rights, while simplistic language in the National Socialist German Reich of German rights.

Tribal rights still existed in the Middle Ages in the form of some of the Sachsenspiegel, Swabia mirror and other law books.