著者

三喜田 熊蔵

出版者

信州大学文理学部

雑誌

信州大学文理学部紀要. 第1部, 人文・社会

巻号頁・発行日

vol.9, pp.1-18, 1960-01-25

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Urgermans had no state in the modern sense of the word. Caesar siad in his "De Bello Gallico" VI, 23, "In peace there is no common magistrate, but principes of provinces and cantons administer justice and determine controversies among their own people. When a "civitas" either defends itself in a war urged against it, or urges a war against another, the magistraate is chosen to preside over that war with such authrity that they have power of life and death. In Germany coexisted monarchies and republics. This juxtaposition of monarchies and republics was based on the distinction made between their chiefs. If their chiefs were "reges", their states were called "monarchies", and if their chiefs were "principes", their states were called republics, and both of them were very democratic systems. Tacitus says in his "Germania " c. 7, "nec regibus infinita aut libera potestas". Even in monarchical states a general peace was not a royal peace but a folk-peace. Peoples of the German states consisted of three classes, honoratior personae (of nobiles), ingenuus and serviles personae. German nobiles were composed of superior "principes" or "reges" and inferjor "comites. "Ingenuus (liberi)" were the core of German infantry from earlier days to the days of Charles the Great. "Serviles personae " were divided in two classes, "laeti" (or "coloni") and slaves. "Laeti" were half-free, and "servi" were not free. German Law is the product of their justice and freedom, and this spirit expressed itself in their system of "Fehde right" and "Compositionen right". And this system was based upon their social moral that "Justice is Power". Tacitus says in his "Germania" c. 19, "plusque ibi boni mores valent, quam alibi bonae leges".