Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/53

 2. JENKS: TEUTONIC LAW 39 of Paulus, the Lex Aquilia, and other purely Roman sources.^ Amongst the Teutonic populations of the north and east, the question of the provincials would, for obvious reasons, be less important ; but the curious reference in the Lex Salica to the man qui legem salicam vivit,^ seems to indicate a similar principle. For slightly later days, the matter is set at rest by the decree of Chlothar II. — " We have ordained that the conduct of cases between Romans shall be decided by the Roman Laws." It is not to be supposed, that the invaders accorded to the provincials a principle which they denied to themselves. In truth, it is somewhat difficult to see how migratory groups could arrive at the notion of a lex terra, unless they were prepared to change their customs with each migration. A great and luminous critic, the late M. Fustel de Coulanges, has, indeed, attempted to deny the occurrence of a migratory epoch, or Volkerwanderung, as well as the recognition of racial differences by the barbarians.^ But, as the same learned historian gives an excellent account of at least a score of new German settlements, hostile or friendly, with the Empire,* the first question resolves itself into one of figures ; while his elaborate attempt to prove that the terms Franci and Romani are names of ranks rather than of races,^ would seem, if successful, to point to the fact that the Teutons settled down as an aristocracy upon the enslaved provincials — a doctrine which is M. Fustel's pet aversion. Certain it is, that the barbarians themselves clearly recognized the prin- ciple of the personality of laws. The oldest part of the Lex Ribuaria (Tit. 31) contains the following conclusive pas- sage : — " This also we determine, that a Frank, a Burgun- dian, an Alamann, or in whatever nation he shall have dwelt, when accused in court in the Ribuarian country, shall answer according to the law of the place where he was born. And (2), etc. (Nouvelles Recherches, pp. 561, sqq.).
 * Lex Romana Burgundionum, Titt. T. (3), IV. (3), V. (2), XIX.
 * Lex Salica, Tit. XLI. (1).
 * Fustel de Coulanges, L'Invasion Germanique, pp. 340 and 543.
 * Ibid., Bk. II. capp. iv.-x.
 * Fustel de Coulanges, L'Invasion Germanique, pp. 340 and 543.