Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

272 10. law in the western kingdoms
of a collection including, in most manuscripts, the Pactus pro Tenore Pacis of
Childebert I and Chlothar I, sons of Clovis, and sometimes the Decretio
Childeberti, which we have already met, a series of three annual decrees
promulgated in the last three years of Childebert II’s reign. By then he had
succeeded his uncle Guntram as the leading king of the Franks. The collection
does not include legislation by Guntram, nor that of Chlothar II. 54
Part, at least, of the textual tradition was Austrasian and bears comparison
with the Austrasian Letter Collection, which stretches from the time of
Clovis to the Austrasia of Childebert II. Its emphasis is on legislation
affecting all the Salian Franks, whether by the authority of a leading king or
by an agreement between two, as with the Pactus pro Tenore Pacis, an agreement
between Childebert I and Chlothar I on measures to keep the peace.
Moreover, the collection is laid out chronologically, as what has aptly been
called code and coda: 55 in other words, the original text is initially added to
rather than revised, so that the coda is chronologically subsequent to the
code and is itself chronologically organized. Leaving aside the capitularies
in the coda, which do not bear indications of date, the entire collection, in
its Austrasian form, is as follows: (1) Pactus Legis Salicae (the code); (2) the
Pactus pro Tenore Pacis (probably between 548 and 558, when Childebert I
and Chlothar I ruled the Franks between them); (3) the Decretio Childeberti
(594–6).
Secondly, there is a clear difference between the code and the coda in
their religious standpoints. Legal protection is given to pagan worship in
the code, but no corresponding protection to Christianity. 56 Admittedly,
the ‘sacred gelded boar’ which is the subject of the Salic Law’s attention is
still there in the K Recension, revised after Charlemagne’s imperial coronation.
57 But that must attest an extreme reluctance to abandon any portion
of the old law, however outdated; the attitude is consistent with the preference
shown by most sixth-century kings for adding to rather than revising
the text of Salic Law. They were ready to change the substance of a rule
in practice, but left the old text where it was.
The problem of how pagan elements survived is not, therefore, the same
as the problem of how they were included in the first place. On the face of
it, the original A Recension was the work of a pagan. Admittedly, it has
been argued that Title 35.1 (about what is to happen when one slave kills
another) is an application of an idea derived from Exodus 21.35. 58 Even if
54 The Edictus Chilperici is extant only in one MS (K17�A17 for the capitularies) but was in the
exemplar of its sister MS (A1) since it occurs in the table of titles. But, since they are sister manuscripts,
the textual tradition cannot confirm that Chilperic’s edict was in the archetype. The Decretio Childeberti
is in those MSS and also in C6 and the D, E and K-Recensions. 55 Daube (1947) ch. 2.
56 The C Recension is a clear contrast: it has a few Christian decrees, notably PLS 55.6–7.
57 PLS 2.16�K Recension, 2.14 (ed. Eckhardt (1956) 474). Brunner (1906, 1928) i.435 n. 39 argues
on the basis of Greg. Tur. De Passione et Virtutibus S. Iuliani c. 31 that this reference may be Christian,
but Gregory refers simply to animals given to the church of Brioude. 58 Nehlsen (1972) 280–3.
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