[351] Lex Saxonum, iv.  In the early days when the Great West of the United States was just being opened up and when society there was in a very crude state, a horse thief was regularly hanged; but murder was hardly a fault.

[352] Lex Burgundionum, 47, 1 and 2.  The guilty man was put to death.

[353] Lex Salica, Tit., 23.

[354] Id, Tit., 28.

[355] Lex Baiuvariorum, Tit., xiii, 2.

[356] Cf. lex Salica, Tit., 61—­a very curious account of formalities to be observed in such a case.

[357] It was deemed sufficient for a male relative, say, the father, to assert the innocence of the woman under solemn oath:  for it was thought that he would be unwilling to do this if he knew the woman was guilty and so incur eternal Hell-fire as a punishment for perjury.  An example of this solemn ceremony is told interestingly by Gregory of Tours, 5, 33.  A woman at Paris was charged by her husband’s relatives with adultery and was demanded to be put to death.  Her father took a solemn oath that she was innocent.  Far from being content with this, the husband’s kin began a fight and the matter ended in a wholesale butchery at the church of St. Dionysius.

[358] Lex Angliorum et Werinorum, xiv:  aut si campionem non habuerit, ipsa ad novem vomeres ignitos examinanda mittatur.

[359] Leges Liutprandi, vi, 140.

[360] Lex Wisigothorum, iii, 4, 16.

[361] See the interesting story of the girl who slew Duke Amalo, as narrated by Gregory of Tours, 9, 27.

[362] The bloody nature of the times is depicted naively by Gregory, Bishop of Tours, who wrote the history of the Franks.  See, e.g., the stories of Ingeltrudis, Rigunthis, Waddo, Amalo, etc., in Book 9.  Gregory was born in 539.

[363] Corpus Iuris Canonici (Friedberg), vol. i, p. 1, Distinctio Prima:  ius naturae est quod in lege et evangelio continetur.

CHAPTER V

DIGRESSION OF THE LATER HISTORY OF ROMAN LAW

With Charlemagne, who was crowned Emperor by the Pope in the year 800, began the definite union of Church and State and the Church’s temporal power.  Henceforth for seven centuries, until the Reformation, we shall have to reckon with canon law as a supreme force in determining the question of the position of women.  A brief survey of the later history of the old Roman Law will not be out of place in order to note what influence, if any, it continued to exert down the ages.