Bibliography of the Visigothic Laws and their Context

This bibliography of the Visigothic Code was contributed by readers of the discussion list LT-ANTIQ in January, 2001.
Thanks are due to Andreas Schwarcz, William Monroe and especially  Mark Handley of University College London, whose  list,  compiled for his students, was very helpful.   The resulting bibliography is primarily in English and, I am warned, neglects much Spanish work.   The editor would appreciate further contributions.

Originally posted January 13, 2001; updated January 18, 2001.


Online Bibliographies of Late Antiquity

The Latin text of the Visigothic Laws:

Leges Visigothorum, ed. K. Zeumer. MGH Leges nationum Germanicarum 1 (Hannover and Leipzig 1902)
 

Recent discussion of the text:

Hartmann, Wilfried, "Brauchen wir neue Editionen der Leges?", in Mittelalterliche Texte (Schriften
   der MGH; Bd. 42 (1996)): 233-245.

Schott, Clausdieter, "Der Stand der _Leges_ Forschung," Fruhmittelalterliche Studien 13 (1979):29-55.
 

Recommended for its recent bibliography:

Velazquez, I.   "Jural relations as an indicator of Syncretism: from the law of inheritance to the Dum Inclita of
Chindaswinth," in P. Heather (ed.), The Visigoths (Woodbridge, 1999), pp. 225-70.
 

Background Reading on the Visigoths and their Laws:

Claude, Dietrich. Adel, Kirche und Königtum im Westgotenreich (1971)

Collins, Roger. Early Medieval Spain. Unity in Diversity. 400-1000. 2nd ed. (New York 1995) esp. pp. 24-31, 121-143.

Heather, Peter. The Goths (Oxford 1996).

Reilly, B.F. The Medieval Spains (Cambridge, 1993), esp. pp. 33-39.

Thompson, E.A.  The Goths in Spain (Oxford, 1969), esp. pp. 114-147, 257-262.

Wolfram, Herwig. History of the Goths (Berkeley 1988).
 

The Laws

Arjava, A. "The Survival of Roman Family Law after the Barbarian Settlements," in R. Mathisen et al. (eds.): Transformation of Law and Society  in Late Antiquity (forthcoming OUP).

Arvizu, F. "La Femme dans Le Code d'Euric," Revue historique de droit francais et etranger, 62 (1984): 391-405.

Claude,  D.  "Freedmen in the Visigothic Kingdom," in E. James (ed.), Visigothic Spain: New  Approaches (Oxford, 1980),
pp. 159-188.

Collins, Roger. "Law and Ethnic Identity in the Western Kingdoms in the Fifth and Sixth Centuries," in Medieval Europeans: Studies in Ethnic Identity and National Perspectives in Medieval Europe (New York: St. Martins, 1998), pp. 1-28.

Collins,  Roger. "Visigothic law and regional custom in disputes in early medieval Spain,"  in W. Davies  and P. Fouracre (eds.),  The Settlement of Disputes in Early Medieval Europe (Cambridge,  1986), pp. 85-104. Revised in his Law, Culture and Regionalism in Early Medieval Spain  (Aldershot, 1992).

Garcia Moreno,  L.A. "Legitimate and illegitimate violence in Visigothic Law," in G. Halsall (ed.),  Violence and Society in the Early Medieval West (Woodbridge, 1998), pp. 46-59.

Harries, J. "Legal culture and identity in the 5th-century West," in G. Greatrex and S. Mitchell (eds.),
Ethnicity and Culture in Late Antiquity (Cardiff/London, 2000), pp. 45-57.

Harries,  J. "Dispute Settlement in the Code of Euric"in R. Mathisen and D. Shanzer (eds.),  Revisiting Late Roman Gaul (London, 2001).

Juster, J. The Legal Condition of the Jews under the Visigothic Kings (Jerusalem, 1976).

King, P.D. "The Alleged Territoriality of Visigothic Law,"  in B. Tierney and P. Linehan (eds.),  Authority and Power
    (Cambridge, 1980), pp. 1-11.

King,  P.D. "King Chindasvind and the First Territorial Law-code of the Visigothic Kingdom,"  in E.  James (ed.), Visigothic
    Spain: New Approaches (Oxford, 1980), pp. 131-157.

King, P.D. Law and Society in the Visigothic Kingdom (Cambridge, 1972).

Lear, F.S. "The Public Law of the Visigothic Code,"  Speculum 26 (1951): 1-24.

Lear, F.S.  Treason in Roman and Germanic Law (Austin, 1965), chs. 4-6.

Liebeschutz, W. "Citizen Status in Roman Empire and the Visigothic Kingdom," in W. Pohl and  H.Reimitz (eds.), Strategies of Distinction. The Construction of Ethnic Communities, 300-800 (Leiden, 1998), pp. 131-152.

Mathews, J. "Roman Law and Barbarian Identity in the Late Roman West", in G. Greatrex and S. Mitchell (eds.), Ethnicity and Culture in Late Antiquity (Cardiff/London, 2000), pp. 31-44.

Sivan, H.  "The appropriation of Roman Law in Barbarian hands:   Romano-Barbarian  marriage in  Visigothic Gaul and
 Spain," in W. Pohl and H. Reimitz (eds.), Strategies of Distinction. The Construction of Ethnic Communities, 300-800
 (Leiden, 1998), pp. 189-203.

Wilhelmsen, A. "Punishment for criminal offences in the Visigothic Code," Classical Folia, 32.2  (1978):. 141-152.

Wood,  I. "Roman Law in the Barbarian Kingdoms," in A. Ellegard and G. Akerstrom-Hougen (eds.),  Rome and the North
(Jonsered, 1996), pp. 5-14.

Wood, I.   "Social relations in the Visigothic Kingdom from the fifth to the seventh century: The  example of Merida,"  in P. Heather (ed.), The Visigoths. From the Migration Period to the  Seventh Century, (Woodbridge, 1999), pp. 191-223.

Wormald,  P. "Lex Scripta and Verbum Regis: Legislation and Germanic Kingship, from Euric to Cnut," in I. Wood and P.
Sawyer (eds.), Early Medieval Kingship (Leeds, 1977), pp. 105-38.