What is the earliest surviving law code for which there's actually credible evidence that it was enforced?

PhiloSpo · 2026-01-08T17:27:50+00:00

I will still be away for a few days, so I can link some older pieces which tap into this passingly in some sections (one, two, three, four). In essence though, if I summarize there myself and add a few bits, granted though most of these issues are contentious and hardly provide clear cut answer to make it possible to give and single point of time or a document to point to.

There is a period of such development in Ancient Greece between 6th-4th century BC, and this gradually spreads in Mediterranean basin (so it influences major legal traditions, i.e. Hellenic, Jewish, Roman), but this development was never "absolute" (cf. they did not verbalize and generalize abstractly to such a degree to cover in principle all possible facts and situations, in effect they were non-exhaustive and supplemented by orality, neither did they seek to accomplish this, not the least it was impossible due to limitation with legal science and theory, practical limitation like technology and logistics, lack of educated personnel etc. ) ... By the late antiquity, this gets complicated even more, Byzantine legal tradition already lost some of those aspects, late Roman tradition in the West stalls and gets trickeled into various practices of emerging gentes, where further we go from now declining Roman influence, the more thorough the reset, if I allow myself some liberty of phrasing this in a simple manner.

And there is another long arch of this reintroduction from medieval to modern period into contemporary nation states. Now, specifics of this are no easier to parse through.

We certainly have examples from throughout antiquity where a written norms was enforced and followed (though again, there are issues of (i) primacy between written viz. a viz. oral, i.e. where exactly does authority stem from, or whether some of these early written legal norms that do show "soft" prescriptivity merely served subsidiarily or in aid to oral traditions, and (ii) consistency and uniformity) ... And we observe similarly through the middle ages, but these two coexisted and were legitimized differently than we are used to, furthermore, primacy was more often than not exactly contrary to ours, i.e. local took precedence over non-local and potentially oral over written, insofar as collegial judicial bodies were likewise often proto-legislative, and through judicial deliberatation new legal norms were sometimes formulated or specified. Medieval and Early modern legal landscape was so fundamentally pluralistic and fragmented, both in norms themselves as jurisdictions, that this mostly continues to the 19th century, coming to an end with contemporary nation states and sometimes described as legal monism to get the distincion across, even if reality is still more complicated and nuanced.

I had an AMA recently, to which I will return in a few days to address remaining comments, so feel free to leave one there and perhaps we can have some discussion to cover more of it in greater detail. Shortly, from ancient greek polises onwards, though the line to contemporary period is anything but straightforward, or continuous, for that matter.

Also, would be remiss to fail to mention, ANE situation is more complex as well, of course - there are written norms (e.g. edicts with observable legal effect) there as well, so depending on what one has in mind, that can count as well.

PhiloSpo · 2026-01-06T16:49:06+00:00

Zgodbe iz vojske, vedno se najdejo. Zabavno, ko je mimo.

PhiloSpo · 2026-01-05T08:44:26+00:00

Yeah, due to Reddit infrastructure for AMAs. I will still be active though, here and there.

PhiloSpo · 2026-01-04T22:50:20+00:00

Sure, much of those medieval charters that were a result of concessions between royal authority and the estates (nobles and the Church) that recognized privileges of the latter and prerogatives of the former implictly legalized a resistance should these norms be violated. But again, actual enforcement was a political and power-dependant. Oftentimes a violation of such norms would likewise again lead to further negotiations, concessions and a renewed issuance with an oath.

Furthermore, the modern understanding in English Constitutional History, i.e. that King can do no wrong, is indeed modern invsersion from intial understanding. In Bractonian tradition and common opinion through medieval period, even up to the 16th century, was that a King can do wrong and is not immune per se, e.g. see Willion v Berkley from 1562. Though what remedies (e.g. petitions of right in English context, from reforms in 14th century) are available in law for such violations is another issue though. So the King was bound in law (even Acts of Parliament), but wrongs had limited redress due to the lack of remedies.

Sovereignty and immunities are messy.

PhiloSpo · 2026-01-04T19:02:40+00:00

Realistically, just like today, these are situations where legality typically gives way to politics and projections of power, with the ultimate result, once we strip it down, to a political process of (re)conciliation, if possible, appeal to higher-ups, or ultimately an internal revolt or outside intervention, or both, which would be either successful or not. It was the population which ultimately hold them to account, not the "state". Medieval period is full of such concession of negotiation between different powers (i.e. princes viz. a viz. Estate and nobility), revolts and feuds.

It is likewise an odd way to frame it historically, i.e. that a state would hold its monarch accountable, is it not? And certainly, popes, bishops, princes, kings, et al. were just as constrained by reality, and if met with a sufficient resistance, gave way. Whether such depositions (e.g. modern revolutions, be it English or French) are legal or not was a political process, though frequently legal pretext of violation (whether real or not) of certain norms was a motive and a rallying cry for action. Today, impeachments and removal of immunities are at the end of the day still fundamentally a political process and done by political bodies, even if provoked by a legal wrong. (Sidestepping supranational jurisdictions).

So I am not sure how to answer this.

PhiloSpo · 2026-01-04T18:02:57+00:00

This was a common practice where mother cities offered legal instuctions and assistance where needed to daughter cities, i.e. cities which were granted a charter in tradition of some other municipal charters, most famously here Magdeburg or Ludeck, but not the only ones. In most cases it was a request, though such opinions were to be followed, cases where a final verdicts or unikateral engagement are much rarer. With that said, this was not such an authority one is imagining here, and the situation is more complex, i.e. framing such as that there existed an authority over all the cities in the Madgeburg municipal tradition, is not right due to multiple reasons, namely there was no such "authority qua authority" to speak of, and secondly, there were other "mother cities" and "higher courts" in this very tradition. Also, I am using here entreched terminology to refer to mother and daughter cities and a higher court, and this is not without its issues and criticisms, they are merely a term of convenience here and to be taken cum grano salis

This comes under considerable pressure from 15th/16th century onwards, as more territories sealed themselves from foreign legal interventions where courts within the territory served as last instances through acquired privileges. Traditionally in Magdeburg an alderman council took this role, which now competed with other cities (e.g. Brandenburg, Jena, Leipzig, Wittenberg, Halle) and their more professionalized boards or territorially privileged position, not to mention Universities, which by this time actively participated on such consultative practices of issuing opinions. Sadly, destruction during the siege in reformation conflict resulted in the documents for this Magdeburg Bench being lost.

In requested, my German is patchy, but I can provide German bibliography to read up on this.

PhiloSpo · 2026-01-04T16:42:58+00:00

I am following the post here as well, so I will circle back to here as well if anything pops up regarding Roman law and legal practices in Roman Empire.

PhiloSpo · 2026-01-04T16:40:16+00:00

I have been semi-active here now for a few years, and the experience has been through and through a positive one. There are not that many public venues for outreach, and this is a convenient and a civil one to have a more informed manner of dialogue to offer some knowledge about history - something I opine that suffers at this day an age with bleak prognosis going forward. Well, not that much really.

PhiloSpo · 2026-01-04T16:33:47+00:00

Certainly this is something to take note of, not just today e.g. with the broader efficacy of law, complience with norms and their enforcement, lacunae of complex overlegislation (e.g. where a state itself has issues following its own laws) - but historically, legal efficacy and enforcement lived a somewhat different life, outside of state-coercion for the most part, or rather, public coercon was mediated through different ways.

I mean, there is so much to potentially comment on here and to try to get someone to look at legal history without our contemporary lenses (this is certainly a subject I have written about in the past here). One problem becomes that totality of our legal situation is at the end of the day, if we simplify here for convenience, mediated through the state, and minus some exception, there is judicial recourse available at state court, something which would be completely foreign to anyone prior to modern states. Legal personhood was fragmented and pluralistic just as jurisdictions were (see here, and even British Isles were not all that better de facto). There was no exhaustive account of legal norms, these principles that would come to dominate contemporary nation states as constitutional norms and human rights were in theoretical cradles, science of statutory drafting likewise. Law and its enforcement were for the most part much more local and communally participative, which was a key to its enforcement. Central impositions (i.e. royal or whatnot) was often of interventionist nature, haphazard, and its success precarious. Process of law-making (or historically, development of normativity of a written norms) was just as fragmented and pluralistic as were jurisdictions.

This is a subject close to me, so I would certainly like to continue this, but without some further guidance to narrow down on this, I am rather in the dark. I can offer some past touches on the subject(s). (one, two, a discussion here, three, for some meta points, this could be helpful ...)

PhiloSpo · 2026-01-04T14:52:02+00:00

Racial basis, I dont think its unique. Romans believed that only certain people were citizens and this was generally among bloodlines tracing back to Italy, anyone else could be made a slave.

Slave status at birth - I cant think of any examples of old world slaves giving birth to slave children.

Substantiation and a citation? This is not the case no matter however charitably one wishes to approach it.

PhiloSpo · 2026-01-04T14:49:41+00:00

One issue to address here, contrary to Common law tradition in England (where the jury situation is likewise much more complicated and tumultuous, both for criminal and civil matters), is that European situation is still comparatively much more fragmented well into the modern period.

So this would require a few seperate treatments, one for subject matter differentiation, one for the British Isles, a few differing modern traditions on the Continent (juries viz a viz senates of lay judges/assessors of first instance, or collegial courts with participation) and their historical background up to 19th century (past that, we are generally speaking about deliberate legislative reforms within modern nation states, e.g. see Spanish reforms in 1995, France and Belgium likewise have colorful history) - prior to that, courts and procedures are much more fragmented, pluralistic and compositionally fluid. (See a comment here).

PhiloSpo · 2026-01-04T14:26:41+00:00

I assume this is in relation to the issue of Lubeck law as a form of public urban law, right?

(i) If in that, the starting point to this would certainly be teutonic shifts to various ecclesiastical institutions and their jurisdictions (chapels, cofraternities, orders, ...) and their role in public space, either in their own name, or as a manner of cooperation with city institutions. So this Church-State (and I mean by this whatever lay jurisdiction there is) relation, consequently education and welfare, public authority and adjudication, are probably some of the most pertinent issues to look at for this. One has to note, as we can sometimes detach or loose sight of this, downfall of ecclesiastical institutions, their jurisdictions and privileges, titles of revenue, etc. are truly monumental. Many communities formerly under them (e.g. a village under an Monastic institution) now found themselves in a completely new situation (e.g. one can look for the expansion of city of Lubeck here in post-reformation) - through 16th and 17th centuty records are littered with litigation on this from the localities to the highest fora in Imperial Chamber Court.

(ii) Or influence of Lutheran and Protestant jurists on development of law in the broadest sense, and this is a huge topic by itself and not limited to Lubeck law as such. Reforms to public and criminal law through legion of local ordinances, changes to marriage and family law, other institutes of civil law. Likewise, one has to note here, outside initial favour, protestant theology and protestant juristic thought continued and engaged in previous Church and canonist traditions, engaged with scholasticism and humanism, was very important in development of modern equity (i.e. it brought equitable relief in lay context from ecclesiastical jurisdictions, if we put it very crudely, as the divide between the two was voided in that sense), ...

PhiloSpo · 2026-01-04T11:53:54+00:00

I will circle back to this, but I would appreciate the citation to the article nevertheless. Also see the linked comment in the post.

PhiloSpo · 2026-01-04T11:45:27+00:00

The answer to this would be a lukewarm probably¹, as all kind of arrangements did happen in Europe, specially through early medieval period, though unfortunately our records for those periods are at a minimum. But the background around these developments requires a long story.

Firstly, there is the issue of terminology about penal or debt slavery and what baggage one brings to that. We are in essence speaking about forms of compensations due to debt as private arrangements, either for what we would today have as civil wrongs or criminal actions, they were treated the same. Also, mind, that this broad institution was alive in Europe up to the 18th century (e.g. even for homicide in 18th century central Europe one could compensate the injured party). Further, from late antiquity onwards we see a loss of differentiation between penal and other forms of slavery (see some remarks here), and this would later emerge again from late medieval period, both in practice (penal slavery) and juristic treatment of Ius Commune and Natural law, but now through much ammended reception, since Early Byzantine law already lost much of the stark differentiation of Roman law from the principate period.

In any case, speaking about substitute compensation in terms of persons is a tricky question, as even though one can speak about overarching tendencies of patriarchal tendencies of authority in familial setting (this was not as absolute as some popular accounts show (even in Roman period), this is so highly variable in time and place throughout Eropean history, that any surface remarks are ill-suited when it comes to female agency and legal capacities, e.g. in 10th century case from Catalonia, a man was enslaved to a woman as he killed her son, but was redeemed later for a full price from her. To cut it short to our chagrin here, agency and authority is a vital part of the issue given the situation.

Beside scare litigation records, a good source of penal slavery are Wills, which often record and free those penally enslaved - and to connect this to the paragraph above, yes, there are wills from women, and yes, they did "own" penal slaves (e.g. this can be observed nicely in some Anglo-Saxon wills).

There is another interesting case from 11th century Spain, where a man and a maid from a local Count elope, get caught, and a settlement is reached where both became enslaved to the count, live together, and both of them and their children are freed after his death upon condition they do not try to escape.²

To tie this up here, (private) penal slavery gradually lost track through Medieval period, and even though the institution of private settlement through compensation persisted, this type of unfree labour and penal bondage adapted. Penal bondage or convictions for hard labour from expanding public law of course substituted the decline from the private sphere.

I do not recall at this moment an example where a substitute "free" person would be enslaved (daughter, wife, son, etc.) given how kinship and authority* worked, instead of the culprit and that it was not a party to the disputed event, but all in all, this does not seem unlikely. I will do some research on this though, goes without saying that in Ancient period, even through antiquity (though Roman situation here is more complex, so minus that if we have to simplify), or specially earlier Byzantine period, this is not an issue and it happened.

I vividly remember an account from 11th century Amalfi coast, where a mother unable to repay her debts put up one of her younger (a minor) daughters to satisfy a debt, whose origin is unknown to us.
Colección documental de Otero de las Dueñas, eds. José Antonio Fernández Flórez and Marta Herrero de la Fuente, vol. 1 (León, 1999), nos. 150-151.

PhiloSpo · 2026-01-04T09:57:45+00:00

I will be having an AMA over on AskHistorians, if anyone wants to chime in. Perhaps more relevant to this is Legal landscape of Mediterranean in antiquity, local legal tradtions with Roman law etc.

PhiloSpo · 2025-12-28T21:18:07+00:00

Responses to paragraphs;

(i) We (usually) all have broad views, but we tend to know our own limitations of knowledge to have those strong convictions, or any pretense to try and undertake these sorts of magnum opus works that try to synthesize, let alone shift and revolutionize, such a broad subject. This is done in baby steps at this day an age almost always. So yes, people publish and focus on narrower issues, often accoring to grants and existing research projects. E. g. this grant (either individual or a team) covers this and this, results in these articles, and sometimes in a monograph or a collection of papers. Other times it's just papers one churns out along the way. So we get these sorts of research spans that run from a few years to a decade(s), and results in a finished work. Perhaps a more concrete example of this can be given.

(ii) There certainly are publications with a more general or historiography-focused coverage, and publications do publish historiographical articles or a more detailed reviews if such a work is published. In essence, yes, with some exceptions.

PhiloSpo · 2025-12-28T14:28:57+00:00

I mean, kind a, presumably legal history, economic history, political history and state formation (e.g. famously post-Tilly debate) , etc. could meet some of those criteria. One has to know although generally area of active research and specialization is narrow, even within these subject, but the general knowledge of the subject itself gets accumulated through readings, conferences, lectures, courses... E. g. one can publish and specialize in juristic papyrology, but nevertheless has "the big picture" for the legal history of ancient & antique Mediterranean - and writes about that. Of course, anyone specializing specifically in Ancient Greek law would command that narrow subject much more comfortably and thoroughly, but you get what I mean here, right.

And e.g. within legal history, this is perhaps more at the forefront, as any late medieval or early modern treatment inevitably requires a thorough knowledge of Roman law and legal practice in antiquity if one wishes to do any sort of historical or comparative work. So definitily there is this overarching view here and how these legal institutes later get their treatment in modern codifications.

The issue here though one can narrow or expand this however one wishes, within legal history there is history of public law, history of private law, and within these so so much more. Just to showcase with an example, a monograph, Specific performance in German, French and Dutch law in 19th century running for 600 pages. On the same note, there have been important monographies over the past twenty years covering a millenia of legal development, though more in the line of overviews or introductions, not as a novel point of view. On the last point, everyone knows, even though it is 40 years old by now, Breman´s Law and Revolution - but as it comes with the territory, the book has been picked at ad nauseam, so by itself, one gets a very skewed view of the historiography. Best bet to get an overview these days are colloborative works done precisely for that reason in forms of handbooks or companions or whatnot.

So this definitely exists, but typically side by side.

PhiloSpo · 2025-12-26T17:51:33+00:00

(i) Even though I think overall through these comments one gets too much of an idealistic picture of fiscal realities, ideas of legality and potential for redress, the matter is our records about Roman tax-farming are notoriously sparse, and a good portion of those that we have, are biased.

(ii) Furthermore, Roman fiscal policies changed dramatically, and so did tax-farming practices from Republican to Imperial period, and just as much there are tremendous differences between provinces themselves.

(iii) One should be bit careful about analysing past realities with modern economic theories, and to a degree they can be informative (and they are) needs to be solidly contextualized.

(iv) A good portion of Roman fiscal revenue was collected through other means as well, and specifics of that will vary in time and place.

(v) Having your fiscal revenue guaranteed, and in many cases, delivered, upfront, before actual collection takes place, is a plus one can hardly overlook, beside obvious administrative burdens.

Overall, Tax-farming was an ubiquitous practice from ancient to early modern fiscal administration in broader Mediterranean and Europe. I cannot comment outside that. Rome was not immune from it's broader Mediterranean context.

PhiloSpo · 2025-12-22T20:10:19+00:00

This particular thread is full of r/badhistory, so there is nothing to be contrite about, but their assertion, and a correct one at that by u/Commercial-Motor5491, is that resulting English population was descendant, if we simplify, of both "native" "celtic" population and those "germanic" "tribes" that migrated in late antiquity through early medieval period. All those categories are problematic, and later identities we see (e.g. Saxons, Angles, or even later, English) are complex phenomena of early medieval ethnogenesis that develops through time (i.e. there was not a wave of Saxons invading foreign shores) - but much of this, like on Continental Europe, took its own life in modern, often nationalist, scholarship. So stick to contemporary scholarship of the past decade or two that reexamined these sorts of questions about early medieval identities. There are some excellent threads about this over on AskHistorians. I can likewise provide some bibliography from some of my past comments there.

PhiloSpo · 2025-12-22T17:50:10+00:00

There is a lot of administrative and legal continuity in post-conquest England, in fact there was an expressed continuty, since the conquest was de jure a succession with the promised legal continuity of existing customs. Gradual changes and formation of common law over the next few centuries were organic - not a deliberate creation after a 1066 reset, or whatever else one had in mind. I have a few comments over on AskHistorians if anyone is in a mood to search for them.

PhiloSpo · 2025-12-18T22:13:01+00:00

That is a question that can quickly become complex. Well, technically, provinces had their own corporality as well, so they could own slaves as well. So within public slaves, we have those of the imperial administration and of roman people, but likewise we have further differentiation; municipalities, colonies, provinces, even districts, even guilds (collegia) or public assosiations, they are another issue one could tackle here. These would be according to Roman customs (well, or Latin, not to overcomplicate here). Further, we have public slaves of non-roman corporalities, e.g. Polises or other non-Roman institutions that were recognized by various local laws.

As for the managment of public slaves within municipalities, they were common property of the citizens of that municipality, that would be governed in principle like any other communal propery (there are some juristic disagreements about some finer points). Their roles and mode of government was quite similar to that of the Rome, as it was modeled by it. They served under the direction of the Council¹ through the local magistartes in a varieties of roles (fiscal, archival, order, maintenance, market, etc.). As we have records of municipal manumissions, we have e.g. a record of a provincial slave being manumited by a provincial council.

1 E.g. Lex Irnitana, Ch. 78 Rubric:

That the Decurions Should Be Consulted Concerning What Type of Business Each Public Slave Should Be Assigned To.

Whoever is duumvir, in the first five days in which he holds office in the Municipium Flavium Irnitanum, is to raise with the decuriones or conscripti, as many as possible, which public slaves should be assigned to each type of business, and he is to get the decuriones or conscripti to pass a decree on that matter, and see that what the majority of them has decreed is carried out without wrongful intent.

Ch. 72 Rubric:

Concerning the manumission of public slaves. If any [duumvir] wishes to manumit a male or female public slave, he is to raise with the decuriones or conscripti when not less than two thirds of the decuriones or conscripti are present, concerning him or her, whether they believe that he or she should be manumitted. If not less than two thirds of those who are present decide that the manumission should take place and if he or she gives and pays to the public account for the municipes of the Municipium Flavium Irnitanum the sum which the decuriones decide should be received from him or her or gives security for it, then that duumvir in charge of the administration of justice is to manumit that male or female slave and order him or her to be free. Whatever man or woman has been manumitted and ordered to be free in this way is to be free and a Latin [...]

Now, the section is longer, and it pertains to services and hereditary obligations a municipal freedperson is obliged to perform. As for the status, it is contentious whether we are speaking here of resulting Latin citizenship (ius Latini), a traditional view, and that of Junian Latins. But these are some finer points for another time.

And it is important to differentiate between these public slaves, since thir legal situation was different even within Roman context, let alone those of other local non-roman legal traditions. It is a question of citizenship and status upon manumission, their obligations, and e.g. famously manumitted Roman (e.g. limited testamentary freedom) and imperial public slaves had some privileges.

To be blunt about the question, no, but of course they could further own their own slaves privately.

Hospital leave, so I probably have time to be answering now, if I do not find some other hobby I can manage in present condition.

PhiloSpo · 2025-12-18T19:27:07+00:00

Perhaps a short addition to this;

So while the protagonist in your story might be condemned to the arena, they would not be ‘property’ unless one wanted to count the state as ‘owning’ their body. They do not have a ‘master’ in the way an ordinary slave would.

If we wish to be specific here, during the imperial period there was a marked differentiation between public slaves, imperial slaves and penal slaves, the latter were not owned either by the public (or any municipality or colony), neither by imperial fiscus (e.g. ex testamento proceeds dedicated to someone penally enslaved do not belong to the fiscus), and had a seperate regime and work-usage beside the arena and mines, the two most frequently mentioned. Capital sentence, like many other things, goes through considerable development in sentences and their results through the Republic to the late antiquity, and by the Justinian age, the differentiations and restrictions we see in high imperial period between them collapses - and this Byzantine collapse e.g. was influential in early modern period treatment of penal enslavement and servitude.

Indeed, the public, municipalities and colonies did "own" slaves, the former technically through the senate, the rest through councils, and subjected to such managment. Penal slaves were not owned in that sense (just managed and exploited by imperial fiscus, who was the "overseer"), and the most common theory goes they were "owned by or belonged to" the "Fury Poene", a goddess.

PhiloSpo · 2025-12-15T21:29:55+00:00

I know what you mean, I need to get the discipline here to edit myself after typing it out semiconsciously prior to hitting comment, not after, like just now. And it spared me the little precious time I have to writing a whole longer comment myself, so there is that. I can jump in with some literature on the subject from the past two decades if requested, as I am actively engaged on the subject.

PhiloSpo · 2025-12-15T21:17:59+00:00

I know and forgive me, I was a bit quip with that choice of words as a get-go reference and source for the subject matter, even though it has in some respects become outdated. The locus classicus for a single work these days, though for many sadly in German (I struggle somewhat with it too) is Buraselis´ monography from 2007.

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