28.7. 7. How the Roman Law came to be lost in Spain.
Things happened
otherwise in Spain. The law of the Visigoths prevailed, and the Roman
law was lost. Chaindasuinthus
[47]
and Recessuinthus proscribed the Roman
laws,
[48]
and even forbade citing them in their courts of judicature.
Recessuinthus was likewise author of the law which took off the
prohibition of marriage between the Goths and Romans.
[49]
It is evident
that these two laws had the same spirit; this king wanted to remove the
principal causes of separation which subsisted between the Goths and the
Romans. Now it was thought that nothing made a wider separation than the
prohibition of intermarriages, and the liberty of living under different
institutions.
But though the kings of the Visigoths had proscribed the Roman law,
it still subsisted in the demesnes they possessed in South Gaul.
[50]
These countries being distant from the centre of the monarchy lived in a
state of great independence. We see from the history of Vamba, who
ascended the throne in 672, that the natives of the country had become
the prevailing party.
[51]
Hence the Roman law had greater authority and
the Gothic less. The Spanish laws neither suited their manners nor their
actual situation; the people might likewise be obstinately attached to
the Roman law, because they had annexed to it the idea of liberty.
Besides, the laws of Chaindasuinthus and of Recessuinthus contained most
severe regulations against the Jews; but these Jews had a vast deal of
power in South Gaul. The author of the history of King Vamba calls these
provinces the brothel of the Jews. When the Saracens invaded these
provinces, it was by invitation; and who could have invited them but the
Jews or the Romans? The Goths were the first that were oppressed,
because they were the ruling nation. We see in Procopius, that during
their calamities they withdrew out of Narbonne Gaul into Spain.
[52]
Doubtless, under this misfortune; they took refuge in those provinces of
Spain which still held out; and the number of those who in South Gaul
lived under the law of the Visigoths was thereby greatly diminished.
Footnotes
[47]
He began to reign in the year 642.
[48]
"We will no longer be harassed either by foreign or by the Roman
laws." — "Law of the Visigoths," lib. ii, tit. 1, sections 9 and 10.
[49]
"Law of the Visigoths," lib. iii, tit. 1, chap. 1.
[50]
See Book iv, 19 and 26.
[51]
The revolt of these provinces was a general defection, as
appears by the sentence in the sequel of the history. Paulus and his
adherents were Romans; they were even favoured by the bishops. Vamba
durst not put to death the rebels whom he had quelled. The author of the
history calls Narbonne Gaul the nursery of treason.
[52]
"De Bello Gothorum," lib. i, chap. 13.
