Leges Langobardorum

1. Introduction

Under the term Leges Langobardorum various legal records of Lombard rulers in Italy are subsumed. The Edictus Rothari (also Edictum Rothari [Wikipedia]) forms the basis of all later law collections. It is a written fixation and an improvement of the old tribal legal customs of the Lombards, the cawarfide, and is divided into 388 chapters that mainly deal with the criminal law issues. Besides that, the Edictus also used biblical texts and other sources of law of Roman or Germanic origin. It was accepted in november 643 in Pavia by an assembly of the army.

The turn of the Lombards to the Catholic faith caused a variety of changes, which also required revisions in legislation. In the year 668 the leges a Grimoaldo additae were added to the Edictus Rothari. This formed the starting point for further such edicts like the Liutprandi leges, which consisted of 153 chapters. The Ratchis leges and Aistulfi leges are the last edicts issued by the Lombard kings. After the Frankish conquest of the Lombard kingdom under Charlemagne at the end of the 8th Century the Lombard law tradition survived especially in southern Italy in the duchies of Benevento and Spoleto to the 11th Century onwards. The Adelchis principis capitula and the Arichis II principis capitula continued legislation in Lombard tradition.

2. Edition

Karl Eduard Zachariae von Lingenthal (Ed.), Fragmenta versionis Graecae legum Rotharis Langobardorum regis, ex codice Paris gr. 1384, Heidelberg 1835.
Friedrich Bluhme (Ed.), Leges Langobardorum (MGH LL IV), Hannover 1868.

3. Reading recommendations (2000 onwards)

Nicholas Everett, Literacy and the law in Lombard government, in: Early Medieval Europe 9 (2000), 93-127.
Cristina La Rocca, La legge e la pratica. Potere e rapporti sociali nell’italia dell’VIII secolo, in: Carlo Bertelli / Gian Pietro Brogiolo (Eds.), Il futuro dei Longobardi. L’Italia e la costruzione dell’Europa di Carlo Magno. 18 giugno-19 novembre 2000, Brescia, Monastero di Santa Giulia, Bd. 2, Milan 2000, 45-769.
Giovanna Princi Braccini, Persistenze di effetti della dominazione longobarda nell’Italia meridionale (Le “Consuetudini di Bari”. La traduzione greca di Rotari. Le “Leges Langobardorum” nel “Cartulario di Conversano”), in: Allesandro Zironi (Ed.), Wentilseo. I Germani sulle sponde del “Mare Nostrum”. Atti del Convegno Internazionale di Studi, Padova 13-15 ottobre 1999, Padua 2001, 225-264.
Paolo Delogu, L’Editto di Rotari e la società del VII secolo, in: Javier Arce Martínez / Paolo Delugu (Eds.), Visigoti e Longobardi: atti del seminario, Roma, 28–29 aprile 1997, Florence 2001, 329-356.
Walter Pohl, Art. “Leges Langobardorum”, in: Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde 18, 2001, 208-213.
Gerhard Dilcher, Fehde, Unrechtsausgleich und Strafe im älteren langobardischen Recht: Eine Skizze, in: Jürgen Weitzel (Ed.), Hoheitliches Strafen in der Spätantike und im frühen Mittelalter (Konflikt, Verbrechen und Sanktion in der Gesellschaft Alteuropas. Symposien und Synthesen 7), Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2002, 27-45.
Christoph H. F. Meyer, Langobardisches Recht nördlich der Alpen. Unbeachtete Wanderungen gelehrten Rechts im 12.-14. Jahrhundert, in: Tijdschrift voor Rechtsgeschiedenis 71 (2003), 387-408.
Walter Pohl, Le leggi longobarde nell’Italia carolingia: contesto e trasmisione, in: Paolo Chiesa (Ed.), Paolino d’Aquileia e il contributo italiano all’Europa carolingia: atti del Convegno Internazionale di Studi, Cividale del Friuli-Premariacco, 10-13 ottobre 2002, Udine 2003, 421-437.
Claudio Azzara / Stefano Gasparri, Le leggi dei Longobardi. Storia, memoria e diritto di un popolo germanico. Testo latino a fronte (Altomedioevo 4), Rome ²2005.
Nicholas Everett, How territorial was Lombard law?, in: Walter Pohl / Peter Erhart (Eds.), Die Langobarden: Herrschaft und Identität. Ergebnisse eines vom 2. bis 4. November 2001 in Wien abgehaltenen internationalen Symposions (Forschungen zur Geschichte des Mittelalters 9), Vienna 2005, 345-360.
Christoph H. F. Meyer, Maßstäbe frühmittelalterlicher Gesetzgeber. Raum und Zeit in den Leges Langobardorum, in: Jahrbuch des Historischen Kollegs (2007), S. 141-187.
Giovanna Princi Braccini, Tre parole delle “Leges Langobardorum” (astus, axegia, orbitaria): una restituzione e due sottrazioni al mediolatino, in: Studi mediolatini e volgari 54 (2008), 149-162.
Klemens Wedekind, Die Rechtsstellung der freien Frau im Erb- und Eherecht des Edictus Rothari, in: Concilium medii aevi 12 (2009), 115-133.
Christoph H. F. Meyer, Maskierte Wahrheit als Legitimationsstrategie. Zur Rolle von Fiktionen im Übergang von der Antike zum Mittelalter, in: Annette Kehnel / Cristina Andenna (Eds.), Paradoxien der Legitimation. Ergebnisse einer deutsch-italienisch-französischen Villa Vigoni-Konferenz zur Macht im Mittelalter (Micrologus’ Library 35), Florence 2010, 307-356.
Jörg Jarnut, Wer waren die Langobarden im Edictus Rothari?, in: Walter Pohl (Ed.), Sprache und Identität im frühen Mittelalter (Forschungen zur Geschichte des Mittelalters 20), Vienna 2012, 93-98.
Paolo Angelini, Annotazioni sull’epitome greca dell’Editto di Rotari, in: Historia et ius. Rivista di storia giuridica dell’età medievale e moderna 7 (2015), No. 3, 1-13.
Thom Gobbitt, Poisoning, Killing and Murder in the Edictus Rothari, in: Larissa Tracy (Ed.), Medieval and Early Modern Murder, Suffolk 2018, 333-349.
Thom Gobbitt, Liutprand’s Prologues in the Edictus Langobardorum, in: Ibid. (Ed.), Law | Book | Culture in the Middle Ages (Explorations in Medieval Culture 14), Leiden 2021, 71-97.
Federico Feletti, La ricezione della normativa edittale nelle carte longobarde dell’Italia settentrionale. Prospettive e casi di studio, in: Scrineum 19/1 (2022), 7-62.

4. Further resources

Johannes Herold, Originum ac Germanicarum antiquitatum libri, leges videlicet, Salicae, Alemannorum, Saxonum, Thuringorum, Burgundionum, Francorum, Ripuariae, Boioariorum, Westphalorum, Werinorum, Frisionum, Langobardorum, Theutonum, 1557. (available online BSB)
Friedrich Lindenbrog, Codex legum antiquarum, 1613. (available online BSB)
Ferdinand Walter, Corpus iuris Germanici antiqui 1, 1824. (available online BSB)
Johann Daniel Ferdinand Neigebaur, Regum Langobardorum leges de structoribus, 1853. (available online BSB)
Johann Daniel Ferdinand Neigebaur, Edicta regum Langobardorum quae comes Baudi a Vesme in genuinam formam restituit. Cum appendice: Regum Langobardorum leges de structoribus, 1855. (available online BSB)
Friedrich Bluhme, Edictus ceteraeque Langobardorum leges, 1869. (available online BSB)
Detailed manuscript descriptions can be found in Thom Gobbitt’s blog

5. Manuscripts [26]

[VIAF entry]

1. Introduction

2. Edition

3. Reading recommendations (2000 onwards)

4. Further resources

5. Manuscripts [26]

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