A Study in Ancient Law. the Sachseuspiegel. The Pope himself admits the great influence of the work in the words : "... scripta in Saxonica et nonnulles alliis partibus apud tarn nobiles quam plebeios reperiuntur quae iudices et incole a longis retro temporibus observarunt." The thunders of the Vatican did not pre vent the Sachseuspiegel from retaining and even extending the authority it had once ac quired. Its spread and authority had always been a source of annoyance to the clergy, they had always looked upon the Sachseu spiegel with disfavor; but neither secret nor open hostilities on their part succeeded in impairing its hold on the people. The rottenness of the clergy, the utter de moralization of the churchmen, and their tyrannical rule had stirred popular discontent. Attacks directed against the Church were openly made, and the songs of the " Minne singer," and the expressions in the law books give a faithful picture of the then prevailing state of affairs. To say " as bad as a priest," or " I would rather be a monk," became so fre quent that these words passed into common parlance. Walther von der Vogelweide sings : —
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But further on the Saehsenspiegel gives minute rules of conduct for the case that the promisor promises while under duress. An exactly similar provision is found in the old English law : — "At the first we teach that it is most needful that every one warily keep his oath and his ' wed.' If any one be constrained to either of this wrong fully, either by treason against his lord or to any unlawful aid, then it is juster to belie than to fulfil." The Saehsenspiegel has a very complete and strict criminal code. Murder, robbery, stealing church property, arson, and graveyard desecration were pun ishable by breaking on the " Rad." Highway robbery and theft subjected the offender to punishment by hanging. Rape was punished by decapitation, the house in which rape was committed was to be torn down, and all living beings in it were to be destroyed. In the city of Niirnberg burying alive, in other cities impaling, were the punishments. Burning at the stake was a punishment re served for heretics, magicians, and poisoners. II.
"O Father in heaven, how long wilt thou sleep? The lord of thy treasury is only a thief. Thy shepherd 's a wolf who devoureth the sheep; Thy judge is of robbers and murderers chief." In the Sachscnspicgcl we find regulations concerning the status of children of priests, and in several other law books, enactments which clearly show the contempt in which priests were held. Similarly the many regulations on promises and debts, as also the sanguinary criminal code, throw a strong side on the moral con dition of the age. The Sachseuspiegel enjoins on every one the sacred duty of keeping promises. So strictly was this rule enforced, that when a debtor could not pay his debts, his body was to answer. Of the same law we are informed by Tacitus and the Leges Barbarorum.
In the first stages of the existence of the human race, man lived in hordes, differing but little from the communities formed by the gregarious animals. In these hordes the social institutions of marriage and family, as we understand them, had no existence. The members of the horde were bloodrelations, and the union of the sexes was "communal; " that is, the sexual intercourse was to a great extent promiscuous, regulated merely by mutual desire and the right of the stronger. Yet an " absolute " promiscuity, as assumed by Morgan, ' McLennan, and Bachofen, probably never existed. There must have been other social forces beside the mere right of the stronger. A society so organized could not possibly exist; it "would have broken up in a week, while in fact savage societies last for ages." Ob
