prepared, for, on the one hand, the principles of Roman jurisprudence had gradually crept into the Visigothic private law, and on the other, the Councils of Toledo had created a common system of legislation of the utmost importance. A proof of the agreement at which the two legal systems had arrived in some cases is furnished by the Visigothic formulae of the time of Sisebut, found in a manuscript at Oviedo. According to the prevalent opinion of legal historians, this unification was completed by Chindaswinth's abolition of the Lex Romana or Breviarium of Alaric II, to which the Spanish and Gallo-Romans were subjected, and by the specific repeal of the law of Roman origin which forbade marriage between people of different races, though we know that such marriages did take place, like that of Theudis. The accepted theory has recently been modified by the revised opinion of the critics, which ascribes to Receswinth the abolition of the Lex Romana formerly ascribed to his father.[1] In any case, the reign of Chindaswinth was a period of great legislative activity so far as unification is concerned. This activity found expression in numerous amendments and modifications of the older Visigothic Laws compiled by Recared and Leovigild and in the promulgation of other new ones. Ninety-eight or ninety-nine laws, clearly the work of Chindaswinth, are recorded in the texts which have come down to us, and all of them shew the predominating influence of the Roman system. Moreover, as his son Receswinth leads us to understand in one of his own laws, Chindaswinth began to make what was in fact a new code. Receswinth, therefore, did little more than conclude and perfect the work begun by his father, that is to say, he codified the laws which were in force in Spain, in their twofold application, Gothic and Roman. They formed a systematic compilation, which was divided into two books and bore the title of Liber Judiciorum, afterwards changed to that of Liber or Forum Judicum. The date of it is probably 654. Two copies of this Liber have been preserved; in the modern amended editions it is known by the name of Lex Reccesvindiana (Zeumer). It is a collection of laws made expressly for use in the courts and therefore it omits several provisions referring to legal subjects or branches of the same — for instance a great part of the political law, for as a rule this does not affect the practice of the courts. But the fifteen chapters of Book I, which refer to the law and the legislator, form an exception to this; they are the reflection, and
- ↑ De remotis alienarum gentium legibus, II. 1. This law, which occurs in several manuscripts and editions of the Visigothic codes, prohibits the use of the Roman legislation in Spain. Nevertheless, there are some historians (Helferich, Stobbe, Gaudenzi, Ureña) whom this revised opinion does not satisfy, and who consider that the amendment or repeal of the Lex Romana is earlier. They go so far as to assert that it was the work of Leovigild and that the law of Receswinth is nothing more than a ratification of the former decree. Nevertheless, the accepted opinion, of which Zeumer is at present the chief exponent, is still the best supported and the most popular.
