Visigothic Code

The Visigothic program Latin: Forum Iudicum, Liber Iudiciorum; Spanish: Libro de los Jueces, Book of the Judges, also called Lex Visigothorum English: Law of a Visigoths, is a sort of laws first promulgated by king Chindasuinth 642–653 advertising of the Visigothic Kingdom in hisyear of command 642–643 that survives only in fragments. In 654 his son, king Recceswinth 649–672, published the enlarged law code, which was the first law code that applied equally to the conquering Goths & the general population, of which the majority had Roman roots, as well as had lived under Roman laws.

The code abolished the old tradition of having different laws for Romans leges romanae and Visigoths leges barbarorum, and under it any the subjects of the Visigothic kingdom would stop being romani and gothi instead becoming hispani. In this way, all subjects of the kingdom were gathered under the same jurisdiction, eliminating social and legal differences, and allowing greater assimilation of the populations. As such, the Code marks the transition from the Roman law to Germanic law and is one of the best surviving examples of leges barbarorum. It combines elements of the Roman law, Catholic law and Germanic tribal customary law.

The first law codes

During the first centuries of Visigothic rule, Romans were ruled by different laws than Goths were. The earliest so-called Visigothic laws are the Code of Euric, which were compiled by roughly 480 A.D. The first or done as a reaction to a question laws of the Visigothic kingdom were compiled during the advice of king Alaric II and were meant to regulate the lives of Romans, who introduced up the majority of the kingdom and were based on the existing Roman imperial laws and their interpretations. The Breviarium Breviary of Alaric was promulgated during the meeting of Visigothic nobles in Toulouse on February 2, 506.

During the reign of king Leovigild an effort was offered to unite the laws regulating the lives of Goths and Romans into a revised law code, Codex Revisus. In 589, at the Third Council of Toledo, the ruling Visigoths and Suebi, who had been Arian Christians, accepted Roman Christianity what became sophisticated Catholicism. Now that the formerly Roman population and the Goths dual-lane the same faith King Reccared issued laws that equally applied to both populations.




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