What was the Liber Iudiciorum of the Visigoths in Spain?
One law for Goths and Romans
El Liber Iudiciorum
654. In 654 King Recceswinth issued the Liber Iudiciorum, the Book of Judgements, a code in Latin that applied to everyone in his kingdom, Goth or Hispano-Roman,…
Draft: not yet checked against its sources.
Where: Spain, Toledo
What happened
In 654 King Recceswinth issued the Liber Iudiciorum, the Book of Judgements, a code in Latin that applied to everyone in his kingdom, Goth or Hispano-Roman, ending the old habit of separate laws for the two peoples. Drawing on Roman law and Gothic custom, it covered courts, marriage, inheritance, contracts and crimes; it was revised in 681. The code outlived the kingdom that made it. The Muslim conquest did not abolish it for Christians, the Christian kingdoms of the north kept it, and in the thirteenth century Fernando III had it translated into Castilian as the Fuero Juzgo for the newly conquered cities, which made it one of the first long legal texts in the Spanish language.
Say it
El Liber Iudiciorum era la misma ley para godos y romanos.
The Liber Iudiciorum was the same law for Goths and Romans.
Why it matters
The Liber Iudiciorum is the root of the Hispanic legal tradition and, as the Fuero Juzgo, an early monument of written Castilian.
Connected
- The Visigoths become Catholic (8 May 589)
- The Visigoths become Catholic (8 May 589)
- Valencia and Seville fall to the Christian kings (between 1236 and 1248)
- Valencia and Seville fall to the Christian kings (between 1236 and 1248)
Sources
- At the Origins of the Hispanic Legal Tradition: A Translation and Commentary of the Book of Judgments (Damián Fernández) — American Council of Learned Societies