Frankish Law and Justice

Across the Frankish realms of western and central Europe from about 450 to 900, written legal collections, assemblies, sworn testimony, kin payments and royal orders all shaped disputes. A district count (local royal official) could bring officers to seize goods for an unpaid debt. Homicide compensation connected an offender’s resources to the dead person’s family. Sixth-century accounts from Tours in modern France show how claims encountered royal patrons; under Charlemagne, travelling representatives were instructed to hear complaints and report unresolved cases.

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A summons and a claim

The Salic Law, a Frankish legal collection surviving in successive redactions, or revised versions, opens with a procedure for bringing someone before a public judicial assembly called the Thing in the English translation. The person summoning an opponent went to his home with witnesses. If the man was absent, the caller could tell his wife or another member of the household to notify him. The summoned person faced a fine for failing to appear without a lawful reason; the claimant also owed a penalty if he summoned the other party and then failed to attend. The rule makes a court appearance depend on a sequence of people, notice and reciprocal obligations.

The collection also assigns different values to injuries and deaths. Its wound tariffs distinguish, for example, a deep wound between the ribs or in the stomach from a blow that draws blood, and add a separate physician’s fee to the former. A homicide of a free Frank carried a different tariff from the killing of a king’s servant or of a Roman who ate at the king’s table. These distinctions gave status and royal connection a direct place in the calculation of compensation.

Kin and compensation

A payment called wergeld connected the offender with the dead person’s relatives. In the Salic provision, the victim’s sons received half; the nearest relatives on the maternal and paternal sides divided the rest. If no relatives could claim it, the remaining share went to the royal treasury. A family’s place in a dispute was therefore written into the distribution of the payment, rather than appearing only after a verdict.

The collection’s chrenecruda procedure concerns a killer who has given up all his property but still cannot pay the required amount. Twelve sworn witnesses attest that he has no resources left. The man then gathers dust from the four corners of his house and casts it over his shoulder onto the nearest eligible relative; the provision goes on to allocate the shortfall among kin on both sides. If a relative cannot pay, the procedure passes the obligation to a wealthier one. If none can pay, the man in charge of the killer must bring him before the Thing and then before four further assemblies so that friends may take him under their protection. If nobody redeems the amount still owed, the text prescribes that he must answer with his life.

A debt reaches the count

The collection describes another procedure for a promised payment. Within forty days, or another agreed term, a creditor could make a witnessed demand at the debtor’s house. If the debtor refused, the creditor could bring the promise before the Thing. If the debtor still refused, the creditor returned with witnesses and waited until sunset; repeated refusals over three weeks added penalties to the debt. If the promise remained unpaid, the creditor approached the count responsible for the district.

The count was to come to the debtor’s house with bailiffs, royal officers who helped appraise property that could settle the obligation. The debtor could choose two bailiffs to make the valuation. If he refused to pay or was absent, the officers could seize property worth the debt; the creditor received two thirds and the count one third as peace money, unless the count had already been paid in the same matter. This rule describes justice as collection work: a claimant supplied witnesses and a formal account, a count mobilized officers, and appraised goods converted a promise into payment.

Documents and royal protection

Gregory, bishop of Tours, recounts a sixth-century dispute in which Andarchius used royal service and a document to obtain an order against Ursus. Gregory says that Andarchius had been enslaved and educated in letters and calculation before serving Duke Lupus and receiving favor from King Sigibert. When Ursus denied an agreement to marry his daughter to Andarchius, Andarchius arranged for another man named Ursus to swear an oath before relics, sacred remains or objects associated with saints. Witnesses secretly heard the oath but did not see the speaker; Andarchius later showed the resulting written oath to the king. A royal order directed the local judge to enforce the marriage or let Andarchius seize Ursus’s property. Ursus fled, but Andarchius followed and took possession; Gregory then says Ursus’s household burned the house with Andarchius inside. Ursus escaped to a church and, after giving gifts to the king, recovered a valid title to his property. The episode shows how a claimant’s access to court, documents and royal favor could turn an alleged promise into a property seizure, and how resistance could reopen the matter.

Gregory’s account of Sichar and Chramsind describes a homicide claim that moved through several hands. Sichar had killed Chramsind’s relatives, and compensation was paid; the men later became close companions. After Sichar mocked the payment at dinner, Chramsind killed him and went to the king. Queen Brunhilda was displeased because she had placed Sichar under her protection, and Chramsind moved to Bouges, in Guntram’s kingdom. He later returned to the king and proved that Sichar had killed his kin. Brunhilda ordered Chramsind’s property confiscated, but the court official Flavian later returned it.

Charlemagne’s representatives hear complaints

Under Charlemagne, who ruled from 768 and was crowned emperor in 800, the 802 General Capitulary, a set of royal instructions, told the missi, royal representatives, to investigate complaints. They were selected from among the ruler’s lay and church officials and sent through the realm. The capitulary told them to correct injustices, prevent people from manipulating the law, and protect churches, poor people, widows and orphans. Where they could not settle a case with the local count, they were to send a clear report to the emperor. It also forbade their decisions from being swayed by bribes, friendship or fear of powerful people.

Charlemagne’s biographer Einhard describes a related effort to put law in writing. After the imperial coronation, Charlemagne added sections to the distinct Salic and Ripuarian laws and had unwritten customs recorded, though Einhard says the wider revision was not completed.