[Illustration:  Fig. 296.—­The Familles and the Barbarians.—­Fac-simile of a Woodcut in the “Cosmographie Universelle” of Munster:  in folio, Basle, 1552.]

Under the Merovingians the legal principle of power was closely bound up with the possession of landed property.  The subdivision of that power, however, closely followed this union, and the constant ruin of some of the nobles rapidly increased the power of others, who absorbed to themselves the lost authority of their more unfortunate brethren, so much so that the Frank kings perceived that society would soon escape their rule unless they speedily found a remedy for this state of things.  It was then that the lois Salique and Ripuaire appeared, which were subjected to successive revisions and gradual or sudden modifications, necessitated by political changes or by the increasing exigencies of the prelates and nobles.  But, far from lessening the supremacy of the King, the national customs which were collected in a code extended the limits of the royal authority and facilitated its exercise.

In 596, Childebert, in concert with his leudes, decided that in future the crime of rape should be punished with death, and that the judge of the district (pagus) in which it had been committed should kill the ravisher, and leave his body on the public road.  He also enacted that the homicide should have the same fate.  “It is just,” to quote the words of the law, “that he who knows how to kill should learn how to die.”  Robbery, attested by seven witnesses, also involved capital punishment, and a judge convicted of having let a noble escape, underwent the same punishment that would have been inflicted on the criminal.  The punishment, however, differed according to the station of the delinquent.  Thus, for the non-observance of Sunday, a Salian paid a fine of fifteen sols, a Roman seven and a half sols, a slave three sols, or “his back paid the penalty for him.”  At this early period some important changes in the barbaric code had been made:  the sentence of death when once given had to be carried out, and no arrangements between the interested parties could avert it.  A crime could no longer be condoned by the payment of money; robbery even, which was still leniently regarded at that time, and beyond the Rhine even honoured, was pitilessly punished by death.  We therefore cannot have more striking testimony than this of the abridgment of the privileges of the Frankish aristocracy, and of the progress which the sovereign power was making towards absolute and uncontrolled authority over cases of life and death.  By almost imperceptible steps Roman legislation became more humane and perfect, Christianity engrafted itself into barbarism, licentiousness was considered a crime, crime became an offence against the King and society, and it was in one sense by the King’s hand that the criminals received punishment.