Denis," a Manuscript of the Fourteenth Century (Library
of the Arsenal).]

The advantages of acting together for mutual protection first established
itself in families. If any one suffered from an act of violence, he laid
the matter before his relatives for them jointly to seek reparation. The
question was then settled between the families of the offended person and
the offender, all of whom were equally associated in the object of
vindicating a cause which interested them alone, without recognising any
established authority, and without appealing to the law. If the parties
had sought the protection or advice of men of power, the quarrel might at
once take a wider scope, and tend to kindle a feud between two nobles. In
any case the King only interfered when the safety of his person or the
interests of his dominions were threatened.

Penalties and punishments were almost always to be averted by a money
payment. A son, for instance, instead of avenging the death of his
father, received from the murderer a certain indemnity in specie,
according to legal tariff; and the law was thus satisfied.

The tariff of indemnities or compensations to be paid for each crime
formed the basis of the code of laws amongst the principal tribes of
Franks, a code essentially barbarian, and called the Salic law, or law of
the Salians (Fig. 7). Such, however, was the spirit of inequality among
the German races, that it became an established principle for justice to
be subservient to the rank of individuals. The more powerful a man was,
the more he was protected by the law; the lower his rank, the less the law
protected him.

The life of a Frank, by right, was worth twice that of a Roman; the life
of a servant of the King was worth three times that of an ordinary
individual who did not possess that protecting tie. On the other hand,
punishment was the more prompt and rigorous according to the inferiority
of position of the culprit. In case of theft, for instance, a person of
importance was brought before the King's tribunal, and as it respected the
rank held by the accused in the social hierarchy, little or no punishment
was awarded. In the case of the same crime by a poor man, on the contrary,
the ordinary judge gave immediate sentence, and he was seized and hung on
the spot.

Inasmuch as no political institutions amongst the Germans were nobler or
more just than those of the Franks and the other barbaric races, we cannot
accept the creed