Li livres de jostice et de plet

"Li livres de jostice et de plet(z)" ("The Books of Justice and of Pleas") is a Old French legal treatise compiled by the postglossators of the school of Orléans in the mid-thirteenth century (c. 1260). It was influenced by canon law (especially the decretals of Gregory IX), Roman law (especially the "Digest"), the customary law of the Orléanais, and the legislation of the Capetian Kings of France. It does not have the sense of a finished work, possesses "lacunae", and is somewhat disorganised, being possibly the work of a student of the University of Orléans. [Donahue, p. 62 n16.] A modern edition was made by Pierre-Nicolas Rapetti (born 1812) and Polycarpe Chabaille in 1850 (Paris: Firmin Didot).

The first book of the "Livres" is a free translation of the first three paragraphs of the "Digest". It is not a "coutoumier" (compilation of customary law) and most of the customary law it cites is limited to Orléans. Among the royal acts it reproduces is one of Saint Louis from 1254, in which the king depicted as judge declares himself the guardian of the peace and rest of his subjects: "nos deserrens de la dete de la real poesté la pez et le respous de nos sojeiz". The "Livres" may have influenced the later legislation of Philip the Fair.

Examples

;FeudalismWith regards to the law of fiefs, the "Livres" states that dukes, counts, viscounts, and barons could all hold their land from one another. [Reynolds, p .288.] The "Livres" also states that "la bone devise de droit des persones, des gens, est tele que tot homes ou il sont franc ou serf": "the good division of the law of persons is that all men are either free or servile." [Kim, p. 2.] This law is based on the "Digest" but the meaning of the word "servi" that the medieval author translates "serf" meant "slave".

;Laws of warThe "Livres", by defining treason ("traïson") as "férir, et l'en ne voie pas le cop venir" (to wound [someone] , and when the blow could not be seen coming), declared all crossbowmen to be traitors, since nobody could see their blows coming.

;Sexual crimesThe "Livres" has provided scholars with unique insight into medieval legal attitudes to sexual crimes. It does not lay out punishment for prostitutes, preferring to reintegrate them into society in accordance with canon law. It does, however, prescribe the banishment and confiscation of property of the "maquerel des femmes" (procurer) and the owner of a brothel ("bordelerie"). [Otis, p. 162 n32.] It also describes penalties for both male homosexuality and is the first known work to describe them for lesbianism as well. On the first offence, the male sodomite was to be castrated, on the second dismembered, and on the third burned alive. The female sodomite was to be dismembered on the first two offence (exactly what two "members" were to be cut off is uncertain) and burned alive on the third. All their goods accrued to the crown. [Boswell, pp. 289–90.]

ources

*Boswell, John (1981). "Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century". Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
*Donahue, Charles Jr. (1979). "What Causes Fundamental Legal Ideas? Marital Property in England and France in the Thirteenth Century." "Michigan Law Review", 78:1 (November), pp. 59–88.
*Kim, Keechang (2000). "Aliens in Medieval Law: The Origins of Modern Citizenship". Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0 521 80085 4.
*Krynen, Jacques (2000). [http://crm.revues.org/document892.html "Entre science juridique et dirigisme: le glas médiéval de la coutume."] "Cahiers de recherches médiévales", 7.
*Otis, Leah Lydia (1985). "Prostitution in Medieval Society: The History of an Urban Institution in Languedoc". Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
*Peralba, Sophie (2000). [http://crm.revues.org/document887.html "Des coutumiers aux styles: l'isolement de la matière procéduraleaux XIIIe et XIVe siècles."] "Cahiers de recherches médiévales", 7.
*Reynolds, Susan (2001). "Fiefs and Vassals: The Medieval Evidence Reinterpreted". Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 0 19 820458 2.
*White, Stephen D. (2007). [http://e-spania.revues.org/document2233.html "Alternative Constructions of Treason in the Angevin Political World: "Traïson" in the "History of William Marshal"."] "e-Spania", 4 (December).

Notes