Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- INTRODUCTION
- Part I Formulae, Charters and the Written Word
- Part II Inventory of the Evidence
- Part III Formulae as a Historical Source: Limits and Possibilities
- 5 DATING FORMULAE
- 6 LOCAL CONTEXT AND DIFFUSION
- 7 FROM LATE ANTIQUE NOTARIES TO ECCLESIASTICAL SCRIBES: WHEN, WHERE AND WHY FORMULARIES SURVIVE
- 8 FORMULAE AND WRITTEN LAW
- 9 A METHODOLOGICAL TEST-CASE: SLAVERY AND UNFREEDOM IN THE FORMULARIES
- CONCLUSION
- Appendix A handlist of manuscripts
- Bibliography
- Index
- Manuscript Index
8 - FORMULAE AND WRITTEN LAW
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 August 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- INTRODUCTION
- Part I Formulae, Charters and the Written Word
- Part II Inventory of the Evidence
- Part III Formulae as a Historical Source: Limits and Possibilities
- 5 DATING FORMULAE
- 6 LOCAL CONTEXT AND DIFFUSION
- 7 FROM LATE ANTIQUE NOTARIES TO ECCLESIASTICAL SCRIBES: WHEN, WHERE AND WHY FORMULARIES SURVIVE
- 8 FORMULAE AND WRITTEN LAW
- 9 A METHODOLOGICAL TEST-CASE: SLAVERY AND UNFREEDOM IN THE FORMULARIES
- CONCLUSION
- Appendix A handlist of manuscripts
- Bibliography
- Index
- Manuscript Index
Summary
I have argued in the preceding chapters that formulae are not best seen as irrevocably bound to a specific local context which they consistently fail to illuminate, but as adaptable examples chosen by scribes to deal with future situations, over a long time period and a wide geographical area. They are essentially descriptive material turned into normative form, and more emphasis should be placed on this latter function than on their resemblance to charters. It is therefore important to see how they compare with our main other source of normative material for this period, the written laws.
‘SALIC’ OR ROMAN?
The study of formulae was long dominated by the desire to determine the relative areas of influence of Roman and ‘Germanic’ law, by distinguishing between formulae derived from Salic law and those derived from the Theodosian code in its most common early medieval incarnation, the Breviary of Alaric. This concern, which has now all but disappeared from the English-speaking historiography, is still present to some degree in some German scholarship: a recent article by Detlef Liebs was thus still much concerned with establishing whether the practice of self-sale or enslavement for debt was descended from the Roman or from the ‘Germanic’ legal tradition.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Legal Practice and the Written Word in the Early Middle AgesFrankish Formulae, c.500–1000, pp. 198 - 211Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009