La ricezione della normativa edittale nelle carte longobarde dell’Italia settentrionale. Prospettive e casi di studio

Abstract

Historians have recently and fruitfully resumed work on early medieval laws. As regards the problem of the reception of post-roman normative collections in contemporary legal practice, Italian documentation offers a rich working field that allows for a comparison between the charters and the laws. On the basis of this material, it is possible to evaluate the spread, and primary characteristics, of legal expertise in Lombard Italy. Northern Italic charters show strict bonds with Lombard laws. The effects of the royal edicts can be observed in the procedure of the legal acts and are sometimes recognizable in the wording of the charters as well. These laws are often referred to and, in some cases, openly quoted. A group of charters involving purchases of women’s mundium and two charters settling disputes regarding usurpations of lands and accompanying violence reveal flexible uses of the laws, which in any case appear to be well known to the authors of the documents. The possibility to deviate from the law was indeed granted by a provision of king Liuthprand (chapter 91 of his laws). On the other hand, two judgment records show the lex scripta at the core of the procedure of the public hearing.