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Legal history: western Europe & Scandinavia: Italy

Lombards & Franks (Carolingians)

A Germanic tribe recorded in contemporary Latin records as Longobardus or  Langobardus (they may or may not have had distinguishing long beards ... or axes!) ruled most of the Italian peninsula from the late sixth to eighth centuries AD/CE.(Longobardia Major and Langobardia Minor)
In the vernacular, they became known as Lombards.  
(During later periods, Lombardy lingered on as a term for Northern Italy - it still survives today as one of the northern most provinces of Italy.)

Leges Langobardorum

Rothair's edict.--The laws of King Grimwald.--The laws of King Liutprand.--The laws of King Ratchis.--The laws of King Aistulf.

Charlemagne, already King of the Franks, was King of Italy from 774 (prior to this he had had a brief marriage to the daughter of the King of the Lombards) His descendants (Carolingians) were held power in Italy until c888, after which there was about 80 years of political instability. This dynasty principally used capitularies to "legislate."

Medieval Italian legal history

Middle Ages

Below you will see some general introductions (in English) to Medieval Italian legal history, while to the left is some help if you are interested in specifically Italian phenomena before c1000. 
However, as Italy, its scholars, universities, libraries & practitioners, played very prominent roles in the development of western European legal culture, please consult the other pages in this guide for various aspects of pre 1500 Italian law & teaching.
300 - 1000 AD: Roman law survival
Legal scholarship
MA: Roman law
MA: Canon law
MA: Libri Feudorum
MA: Law merchant

Italian legal history in the Bodleian

By tradition, the Law Bod has concentrated on collecting materials on the history ot the common law countiries,  so what you can find on the Law Library shelves does not constitute all that might be useful for your research. When searching in SOLO, take careful note of the locations, and be prepared to move to another Bodleian reading room and/or request from the Closed Stacks

The Law Bod does have some issues of the journal Rivista di storia del diritto italiano at Italy 300 R290 but our run is not complete, and ends in 2008.

Some examples of works on later periods in the development of Italian law and legal system - unification as one state was established over 1848-1871.