Royal Justice, Freedom, and Comital Courts in Ottonian Germany
David S. Bachrach
Abstract The free population of the early medieval German kingdom largely has disappeared from historiographical tradition due to influence New Constitutional History and its contemporary intellectual successors. One important result this writing out history been a thorough distortion roles purposes royal government, relationship between ruler his subjects. This essay seeks redress imbalance by identifying king’s obligations subjects, particularly in areas law justice. focus study is on role played counts, as officials, providing forum for adjudicate their legal disputes obtain justice injuries that they had sustained. A investigation Ottonian period reveals comital courts continued function throughout tenth eleventh century venues manner thoroughly consistent with institutions Carolingian East Francia.
Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte. Germanistische Abteilung