Part 6 (2/2)

[54] Clovis, particularly after his conversion to Christianity in 496, was the hero of Gregory's history and apparently the enthusiastic old bishop did not lose an opportunity to glorify his career. At any rate it would certainly be difficult to relate anything more remarkable about him than this legend of the walls of Angouleme falling down before him at his mere approach.

[55] This notable campaign had advanced Frankish territory to the Pyrenees, except for the strip between these mountains and the Rhone, known as Septimania, which the Visigoths were able to retain by the aid of the Ostrogoths from Italy. No great number of Franks settled in this broad territory south of the Loire, and to this day the inhabitants of south France show a much larger measure of Roman descent than do those of the north. It may be added that Septimania was conquered by Clovis's son Childebert in 531, and thus the last bit of old Gaul--practically modern France--was brought under Frankish control.

[56] This was Cloderic, son of Sigibert the Lame, king of a tribe of Franks living along the middle Rhine. Sigibert was one of the numerous independent and rival princes whom Clovis used every expedient to put out of the way.

[57] Along the Upper Weser, near the monastery of Fulda.

[58] Ragnachar's kingdom was in the region about Cambrai.

[59] The _mallus_ was the local court held about every six weeks in each community or hundred. In early German law the state has small place and the principle of self-help by the individual is very prominent. To bring a suit one summons his opponent himself and gets him to appear at court if he can. Ordinarily the court merely determines the method by which the guilt or innocence of the accused may be tested. Execution of the sentence rests again with the plaintiff, or with his family or clan group.

[60] ”The monetary system of the Salic law was taken from the Romans.

The basis was the gold _solidus_ of Constantine, 1/72 of a pound of gold. The small coin was the silver _denarius_, forty of which made a _solidus_. This system was adopted as a monetary reform by Clovis, and the statement of the sum in terms of both coins is probably due to the newness of the system at the time of the appearance of the law.”--Thatcher and McNeal, _Source Book for Mediaeval History_, p. 17.

The gold _solidus_ was worth somewhere from two and a half to three dollars, but its purchasing power was perhaps equal to that of twenty dollars to-day, because gold and silver were then so much scarcer and more valuable. Such estimates of purchasing power, however, involve so great uncertainty as to be practically worthless.

[61] The Burgundian law (Chap. 41) contained a provision that if a man made a fire on his own premises and it spread to fences or crops belonging to another person, and did damage, the man who made the fire should recompense his neighbor for his loss, provided it could be shown that there was no wind to drive the fire beyond control. If there was such a wind, no penalty was to be exacted.

[62] The law of the Lombards had a more elaborate system of fines for wounds than did the Salic code. For example, knocking out a man's front teeth was to be paid for at the rate of sixteen _solidi_ per tooth; knocking out back teeth at the rate of eight _solidi_ per tooth; fracturing an arm, sixteen _solidi_; cutting off a second finger, seventeen _solidi_; cutting off a great toe, six _solidi_; cutting off a little toe, two _solidi_; giving a blow with the fist, three _solidi_; with the palm of the hand, six _solidi_; and striking a person on the head so as to break bones, twelve _solidi_ per bone.

In the latter case the broken bones were to be counted ”on this principle, that one bone shall be found large enough to make an audible sound when thrown against a s.h.i.+eld at twelve feet distance on the road; the said feet to be measured from the foot of a man of moderate stature.”

[63] The man who had ”thrown away his s.h.i.+eld” was the coward who had fled from the field of battle. How the Germans universally regarded such a person appears in the _Germania_ of Tacitus, Chap. 6 (see p.

25). To impute this ignominy to a man was a serious matter.

[64] This was the so-called ”triple wergeld.” That is, the lives of men in the service of the king were rated three times as high as those of ordinary free persons.

[65] Here is an ill.u.s.tration of the personal character of Germanic law. There is one law for the Frank and another for the Roman, though both peoples were now living side by side in Gaul. The price put upon the life of the Frankish n.o.ble who was in the king's service was 600 _solidi_ (-- 3), but that on the life of the Roman n.o.ble in the same service was but half that amount. The same proportion held for the ordinary freemen, as will be seen by comparing ---- 1 and 6.

[66] A leet was such a person as we in modern times commonly designate as a serf--a man only partially free.

[67] This has been alleged to be the basis of the misnamed ”Salic Law”

by virtue of which no woman, in the days of the French monarchy, was permitted to inherit the throne. As a matter of fact, however, the exclusion of women from the French throne was due, not to this or to any other early Frankish principle, but to later circ.u.mstances which called for stronger monarchs in France than women have ordinarily been expected to be. The history of the modern ”Salic Law” does not go back of the resolution of the French n.o.bles in 1317 against the general political expediency of female sovereigns [see p. 420].

[68] The wergeld was the value put by the law upon every man's life.

Its amount varied according to the rank of the person in question. The present section specifies how the wergeld paid by a murderer should be divided among the relatives of the slain man.

[69] That is, to the king's treasury.

CHAPTER V.

THE ANGLES AND SAXONS IN BRITAIN

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