Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/29

 1. M Air LAND: A PROLOGUE 15

Aetius had been deported to Savoy.^ In their seizure of lands from the Roman possessors they had followed, though with modifications that were profitable to themselves, the Roman system of billeting barbarian soldiers.^ There were many Romani as well as many barbari for whom their kings could legislate. Hence the Lex Romana Burgundionum and the Lex Romana Visigothorum. The former ^ seems to be the law-book that Gundobad promised to his Roman subjects; he died in 516- Rules have been taken from the three Roman codices, from the current abridgments of imperial constitu-tions and from the works of Gains and Paulus. Little that is good has been said of this book. Far more comprehensive and far more important was the Breviary of Alaric or Lex Romana Visigothorum.* Euric's son, Alaric II, pubHshed it in 506 as a statute-book ; among the Romani of his realm it was to supplant all older books. It contained large excerpts from the Theodosian Codex, a few from the Gregorianus and Hermogenianus, some post-Theodosian constitutions, some of the Sententiae of Paulus, one little scrap of Papinian and an abridged version of the Institutes of Gains. The greater part of these texts was equipped with a running commentary (interpretation which attempted to give their upshot in a more intelligible form. It is thought nowadays that this ** interpretation " and the sorry version of Gains represent, not Gothic barbarism, but degenerate Roman science. A time had come when lawyers could no longer understand their own old texts and were content with debased abridgments.^ The West Goths' power was declining. Hardly had Alaric issued his statute-book when he was slain in battle by the Franks. Soon the Visigothic became a Spanish kingdom. But it was not in Spain that the Breviarium made its perma-nent mark. There it was abrogated by Reckessuinth when he issued a code for all his subjects of every race.*^ On the other hand, it struck deep root in Gaul. It became the prin- »Brunner, op. cit. i. 50-1. =" Ibid. 64-7. Edited by v. Salis in M. G. " Karlowa, op. cit. i. 976. •See above, p. 17.
 * Kruger, op. cit. 31T; Brunner, op. cit. i. 354; Schroder, op. cit. 234.
 * Kruger, op. cit. 309 ; Brunner, op. cit. i. 358. Edited by Hanel, 1849.