HISTORY OF LAW 257 



significance in explaining the course of the subsequent history of 

 the law in the states of Northern Europe and in England. 



The characteristic feature of this period was the promulgation 

 from time to time of the so-called barbarian codes. At the beginning 

 of the sixth century and before Justinian had even Barbarian 

 formulated his plans for the codification of the Roman Codes. 

 law, and within less than a century after the completion of the 

 Theodosian Code, the second Alaric of the western division of the 

 Goths, and Theodoric, the great ruler and leader of the eastern 

 division, each promulgated compilations of laws founded on the 

 Code of Theodosius. Theodoric 's compilation seems to have had no 

 permanent effect, for his empire went to pieces soon after his death, 

 leaving no permanent results as affecting the legal history of the 

 people over whom he ruled. But the compilation of Alaric under 

 the name Breviarium was for centuries the law-book for Western 

 Europe. Later in the sixth century some codes were compiled under 

 the rulers of other tribes who had come within the limits of the 

 Roman Empire, the most important of which were the codes of the 

 Burgundians and the Lombards. 



In some of these codes it is expressly indicated that they were for 

 the government of the Roman people, that is, the subjects of the 

 Roman Empire whom the invading barbarian tribes Bavarian 

 had subjected and were attempting to govern. The Roman 

 Goths, for instance, or the Lombards, did not look upon Codes - 

 themselves as accepting the laws of the territory into which they 

 came; but on the contrary they considered that they brought their 

 own laws with them. Conceiving that these laws were applicable 

 only to their own people, their rulers attempted to make compilations 

 of laws based on those which they found in existence in the Roman 

 territory in accordance with which the Roman subjects should con- 

 tinue to be governed. And for this purpose they had resort to the 

 Theodosian Code, so that it is apparent that the barbaric Roman 

 codes do not include the body of the Roman civil law as represented 

 by the Corpus Juris, especially the Pandects or Digest, that most 

 important part composed of excerpts from the writings of jurists. 



But not all of the barbarian codes are of this character. A stage 

 in the development of the Teutonic tribes had been reached similar 

 to that under which the Twelve Tables were promulgated Teutonic 

 at Rome, and some of these codes are simply the an- Codes. 

 nouncement of legislation embodying or adding to the customary 

 law of the tribe. Even the barbarian rulers who compiled Roman 

 codes recognized the existence of the customary laws of their tribes 

 as continuing in force for their own people, and there is little evidence 

 that this customary law was to any considerable extent affected 

 for some time by the contact with the Romans ; but inevitably those 



