Barbarian laws are those that were made during the decline of the Roman Empire by the various peoples that dismembered it, such as the Goths, the Visigoths, the Ripuarians, the Franco-Alemanni, the Anglo-Saxons, etc. See the word Code.

We can see by these laws the form that was observed in their judgments. They were rendered in large assemblies, where all the persons of distinction were found. For proofs, more use was made of witnesses than of titles, for the reason that there was hardly any use of writing, above all in the beginning. Lacking proofs, one relied upon combat or trials through the elements. [1] See Combat and Trial.

The principal subject of these laws was crimes, and above all, those that were the most frequent among these brutal peoples, such as robbery, murder, insults, and, in a word, all that is committed by violence; that dealing with inheritances and contracts was treated in a very condensed manner.

The severity of the punishments they elaborated is remarkable. For most crimes, they ordered only pecuniary fines, or for those who did not have enough to pay, lashes. Criminals at the time were not punished with death, unless it was a matter of crimes against the state. Also, these penalties, called compositions , as they were nothing but a tax of damages and interests, were made with a surprising precision: differentiated by the wounded or mutilated body part, the depth and width of the wound, or the number of wounds.

These laws are written in a style so simple and short that they would be very clear if all the terms were Latin; but they are filled with barbarous words, either for lack of proper Latin words, or to serve as a gloss on them.

1. Also known as ordeals.