Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/33

 1. M AIT LAND: A PROLOGUE 19 improbably he had heard of Justinian's exploits ; but the dooms, though already they are protecting with heavy hot the property of God, priests and bishops, are barbarous enough. They are also, unless discoveries have yet to be made, the first Germanic laws that were written in a Ger- manic tongue. In many instances the desire to have written laws appears so soon as a barbarous race is brought into contact with Rome. ^ The acceptance of the new religion must have revolutionary consequences in the world of law, for it is likely that heretofore the traditional customs, even if they have not been conceived as instituted by gods who are now becoming devils, have been conceived as essentially un- alterable. Law has been the old; new law has been a con- tradiction in terms. And now about certain matters there must be new law. What is more, " the example of the Ro- mans " shows that new law can be made by the issue of com- mands. Statute appears as the civilized form of law. Thus a fermentation begins and the result is bewildering. New resolves are mixed up with statements of old custom in these Leges Barbarorum. The century which ends in 700 sees some additions made to the Kentish laws by Hlothaer and Eadric, and some others made by Wihtraed ; there the Kentish series ends. It also sees in the dooms of Ine the beginning of written law in Wessex.^ It also sees the beginning of written law among the Lombards ; in 643 Rothari published his edict ; ^ it is accounted to be one of the best statements of ancient Ger- man usages. A little later the Swabians have their Lex Alamannorum,^ and the Bavarians their Lex Baiuwariorum.^ " iuxta exempla Romanorum." Bede himself (Opera, ed. Giles, vol. vi. p. 321) had read of Justinian's Codex; but what he says of it seems to prove that he had never seen it: Conrat, op. cit. i. 99. ^ B runner, op. cit. i. 283. So native princes in India have imitated the Indian Penal Code within their states. ' Whether we have Ine's code or only an Alfredian recension of it is a difficult question, lately discussed by Turk, Legal Code of Alfred (Hf)lle, 1893), p. 42. " B runner, op. cit. i. 368 ; Schroder, op. cit. 236. Edited by Bluhme in M.G. in M. G. There are fragments of a Pactus Alamannorum from circ. 600. The Lex is supposed to come from 717-9. M. G. This is now ascribed to the years 739-48.
 * Brunner, op. cit. i. 308; Schroder, op. cit. 238. Edited by Lehmann
 * Brunner, op. cit. i. 313; Schroder, op. cit. 239. Edited by Merkel in