On August 13, 554, the Emperor Justinian formally announced the restoration of Roman imperial rule in Italy. For twenty years from his rebuilt capital of Constantinople he had directed a series of wars whose aim was to destroy the kingdom that the Ostrogoths had established in Italy in 491. Nearly all of Justinian’s foreign policy, from the Tigris and Euphrates valleys to Gaul, had been directed toward the reconquest of Italy, and in that process Justinian’s forces, led by Belisarius and Narses, had destroyed the Vandal kingdom in north Africa, made inroads into Visigothic Spain, and claimed once again naval...

There can be no question that the Germanic barbarians contributed enormously to the emergence of early medieval civilization, even if one may be tempted to rate somewhat higher the contributions of the Roman Empire and the Christian Church. The Germanic contribution, however, is not so easy to trace as is the Roman and the ecclesiastical for the simple reason that, although the barbarians may have had the most profound respect for the art of writing and the products of literacy, they had behind them no long tradition of experience in this area; as a result, the written materials produced by...

The most noble Rothair, king of the Lombards, together with his principal judges, issues this lawbook in the name of the Lord.

In the name of the Lord, I, the most noble Rothair, seventeenth king of the Lombards, [issue this lawbook] with the aid of God in the eighth year of my reign and in the thirty-eighth year of my life, in the second indiction, and in the’ seventy-sixth year after the happy arrival of the Lombards in the land of Italy, led there by divine providence in the time of King Alboin, my predecessor. Issued from the palace at...

These are the laws added by our most glorious King Grimwald:

In an earlier portion of this work, our predecessor urged that, with the help of God, we should add to our lawbook those provisions which we are able to recover of particular causes which up to the present have not been recorded. Those cases which have already been judged and concluded may nonetheless not be renewed. Therefore I, the most noble Grimwald, king of the Lombard nation, with the help of God in the sixth year of my reign, in the month of July, in the eleventh indiction, with...

This Catholic Christian prince has been influenced to promulgate these laws and to judge wisely not by his own foresight but through the wisdom and inspiration of God: he has conceived [these laws] in his heart, studied them in his mind, and happily fulfilled them in his word. For the heart of the king is in the hand of God, as the most wise Solomon attests, who has said: “Just as the flow of the waters, so the heart of the king is in the hand of God; if he holds them back, all things should be dried up; if,...

(I). In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and in such manner as is according to God, for the salvation of our own souls and the souls of all our people, it seems right to us, together with our judges, [to issue these laws] in order that all men, the powerful or well as the poor, who seek justice, may not be put off at all. (A.D. 745 or 746)

I. 1. Every judge shall hold court every day and shall not receive bribes.

[2. All men should first seek justice from their own judge.]

[3. No man may...

. . . As agreed by generations of earlier Lombards, the dispositions of our predecessors have served up to the present time. Now, however, with the aid of our Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name Aistulf is king of the Lombard nation, [a position] confirmed to us by the Lord of the Roman people [i.e., by the Pope], in the first year of my reign, in the third indiction, together with the rest of our judges and Lombards from all our provinces, from our residence at Ticinum (Pavia) we recognize that, since the Lombard lawbook has been issued by act...