Quotation from: Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period

Written by: Paul Lacroix


In 596, Childebert, in concert with his _leudes_, decided that in future
the crime of rape should be punished with death, and that the judge of the
district (_pagus_) in which it had been committed should kill the
ravisher, and leave his body on the public road. He also enacted that the
homicide should have the same fate. "It is just," to quote the words of
the law, "that he who knows how to kill should learn how to die." Robbery,
attested by seven witnesses, also involved capital punishment, and a judge
convicted of having let a noble escape, underwent the same punishment that
would have been inflicted on the criminal. The punishment, however,
differed according to the station of the delinquent. Thus, for the
non-observance of Sunday, a Salian paid a fine of fifteen sols, a Roman
seven and a half sols, a slave three sols, or "his back paid the penalty
for him." At this early period some important changes in the barbaric code
had been made: the sentence of death when once given had to be carried
out, and no arrangements between the interested parties could avert it. A
crime could no longer be condoned by the payment of money; robbery even,
which was still leniently regarded at that time, and beyond the Rhine even
honoured, was pitilessly punished by death. We therefore cannot have more
striking testimony than this of the abridgment of the privileges of the
Frankish aristocracy, and of the progress which the sovereign power was
making towards absolute and uncontrolled authority over cases of life and
death. By almost imperceptible steps Roman legislation became more humane
and perfect, Christianity engrafted itself into barbarism, licentiousness
was considered a crime, crime became an offence against the King and
society, and it was in one sense by the King's hand that the criminals
received punishment.

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