Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

lawbooks and codes 269
plaintiff’s case. The second clause is the judgement upon the causa. The
logic of pleading and judgement implied by the principal concepts used at
the time may be simply stated (assuming that the identity of the offender is
known):
1 The plaintiff comes with a narrative of his causa.
2 The narrative is understood as an instance of a general category: ‘If
anyone does X’.
3 The rachinburgii then state the Salic law: ‘If anyone does X, then let him
pay Y’, which immediately leads to the individual liability of the defendant.
The general dōm gives the particular verdict.
There is no reason to suppose that a typical case proceeded in quite so
expeditious a manner as this scheme suggests. What it implies, rather, is that
this process was the central thread around which argument might develop.
The standard form of decree in Lex Salica is, however, slightly different
from the last step (no. 3). The second clause goes, not ‘let him pay Y’, but
‘let him be judged liable to pay Y’. ‘Let him pay’ is the judges’ dōm, addressed
to the disputants and to the court; ‘let him be judged liable to pay’ is the
legislator’s dōm addressed to the judges and purporting to determine their
verdict. What we have, therefore, in the Salic Law is the legislator’s dōm,
addressed to the judge, as opposed to the judge’s dōm addressed to the disputants.
Yet the important thing is how close they are. We may take a
straightforward example: 43
If someone has killed a Roman required to pay tribute (for the malloberg [�courthill]
they are walaleodi [�Roman people]), let him be judged liable to pay 2,500
denarii which make 621 ⁄2 solidi.
The only change we need in order to make this legislator’s dōm into a judge’s
dōm is to replace ‘let him be judged’ by ‘he is’. Moreover, in a case such as
this one there ought to be no need to prove who killed the Roman: unless
it is the much more serious offence of secret killing, dealt with elsewhere,
the killer should have admitted publicly to his action. 44 True, once guilt is
acknowledged and the court has delivered its verdict, the business of securing
a settlement may only just be beginning, but such issues are not clarified
by the wording of individual decrees and will be discussed later. 45
iii. lawbooks and codes
In principle, then, there is a close link between decree and judgement: the
decree prescribes the judgement; and it does so by closely echoing the
43 PLS 41.10.
44 Compare the way in which Chramnesind placed Sichar’s body on a fence-post and set off to plead
his case before the king: Greg. Tur. Hist. ix.19. 45 Cf. Wood (1986).
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008