Barbarian’s laws , ( Code of the barbarians ). The usages of the Salian Franks, Ripuarian Franks, Bavarians, Allemani, Thuringians, Frisians, Saxons, Visigoths, Burgundians, and Lombards are called the laws of the barbarians .

Everyone knows the great sagacity with which Mr. Montesquieu [1] has developed the spirit, character, and principles of all these laws , from which I shall draw only a few general points.

The Franks who left their county had the Salic laws written down by the sages of their nation. The tribe of the Ripuarians, joining the Salians, conserved their usages, and Theodoric, king of Austrasia, had them put in writing. He also collected the usages of the Bavarians and the Alemanni who depended on his kingdom. It is likely that the code of the Thuringians was given by the same Theodoric, since the Thuringians also were his subjects. The law of the Frisians did not precede Charles Martel and Pepin, who subjected them. Charlemagne, who was the first to dominate the Saxons, gave them the laws that we have. The Visigoths, the Burgundians, and the Lombards, having founded kingdoms, had their laws written down not to make the vanquished peoples follow them, but in order to follow them themselves.

There is in the Salic and Ripuarian laws , as in those of the Alemanni, Bavarians, Thuringians, and Frisians, an admirable simplicity, an original roughness, and a spirit that was not at all weakened by another spirit. They changed little because these peoples, except the Franks, remained in Germany; but the laws of the Burgundians, Lombards, and Visigoths lost much of their character because these peoples, who settled into their new environs, lost much of theirs.

The Saxons, who lived under the empire of the Franks, had an indomitable soul. One finds in their laws the harshness of the conqueror, which one doesn’t see in the other codes of barbarian laws .

The laws of the Visigoths were all recast by their kings, or rather by the clergy, whose authority was immense. We owe to this code of the Visigoths all the maxims, all the principles, and all the views of the tribunal of the Inquisition of today; the monks have only copied against the Jews the laws previously made by the bishops of the country.

What’s more, the laws of the Visigoths are childish, awkward, idiotic, overly rhetorical, devoid of sense, fundamentally frivolous, and gigantic in their style. Those of Gundobad for the Burgundians appear rather judicious, and those of Rotharis and other Lombard princes, even more so. [2]

The distinctive character of the laws of the barbarians is that they were all personal and not attached to a particular territory; the Frank was judged by the law of the Franks, the Alemanni by the law of the Alemanni, the Burgundian by the law of the Burgundians, the Roman by the Roman law . One was so far from dreaming in those times of making all the laws of the conquered peoples uniform that one didn’t even think of becoming the legislator of the vanquished people. [3]

Yet all these personal laws of the barbarians came to disappear among the Franks by general causes that made them cease little by little. [4] These laws already were neglected at the end of the second race [5], and at beginning of the third [6], they were hardly ever mentioned. The fiefs having become hereditary, and under-fiefs extended, new usages were introduced, to which the laws of the barbarians were no longer applicable; customs were substituted for them.

As in the establishment of the monarchy, customs and usages passed into written laws , after a few centuries, the written laws returned to unwritten usages and customs. [7]

The compilation of Justinian having appeared next, it was received as law in the parts of France that were governed by Roman right, and only as reason in those governed by customs; that is why some of these customs were gathered under the reign of Saint Louis and the following reigns, but under Charles VII and his successors, they were drawn up by the whole kingdom. They became more known and took the stamp of royal authority. Finally, new, more complete editions were formed in times not very distant from our own, in times when one did not glory in being ignorant of what one should know, and of knowing those things of which one should be ignorant. [8]

1. Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, Books 28, 30, 31. Where indicated, Jaucourt draws directly from The Spirit, sometimes verbatim.

2. See The Spirit of the Laws, Book 28, Chapter 1.

3. See The Spirit of the Laws, Book 28, Chapter 2.

4. See The Spirit of the Laws, Book 28, Chapter 5.

5. The Carolingians, who succeeded the “first race” of the Merovingians.

6. The Capetians

7. See The Spirit of the Laws, Book 28, Chapter 9.

8. See The Spirit of the Laws, Book 28, Chapter 42, 45.