Editing Visigothic Code (section)

==Visigothic code==
[[File:Liber Iudiciorum visigòtic.png|left|thumb|Fragment of an 11th-century ''Liber Judiciorum'' translation to the [[old Occitan]] language.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/obra-visor/fragment-duna-versio-catalana-del-liber-iudiciorum-visigotic-manuscrit-forum-iudicum--0/html/|title=11th century Occitan translation of the Liber Iudiciorum|website=www.cervantesvirtual.com}}</ref> Guarded at [[Santa Maria de Montserrat Abbey|Santa Maria of Montserrat Abbey]] on the [[Montserrat (mountain)|Montserrat]] mountain, [[Catalonia]], [[Spain]].]]
The code of 654 was enlarged by the novel legislation of [[Recceswinth]] (for which reason it is sometimes called the ''Code of Recceswinth'') and later kings [[Wamba, Visigothic king|Wamba]], [[Erwig]], [[Egica]], and perhaps [[Wittiza]]. Recceswinth's code was edited by [[Braulio of Zaragoza]], since Chindasuinth's original code had been hastily written and promulgated.<ref>King, 148&ndash;149.</ref>

During the [[Twelfth Council of Toledo]] in 681, King [[Erwig]] asked that the law code be clarified and revised. Some new laws were added, out of which 28 dealt with Jews.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=imzdcbp_5woC&dq=visigothic+code&pg=PA19 ''Law and Society in the Visigothic Kingdom'']</ref>

The laws were far-reaching and long in effect: in 10th-century [[Kingdom of Galicia|Galicia]], monastic charters make reference to the ''Code''.<ref>Fletcher 1984, ch. 1, note 56</ref> The laws govern and sanction family life and by extension political life: marriage, the transmission of property to heirs, safeguarding the rights of widows and orphans. Particularly with the Visigoth's Law Codes, women could inherit land and title, were allowed to manage land independently from their husbands or male relations, dispose of their property in legal wills if they had no heirs, could represent themselves and bear witness in court by age 14 and arrange for their own marriages by age 20.<ref name="Visgothic Women">Klapisch-Zuber, Christine; ''A History of Women: Book II Silences of the Middle Ages'', The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, London, England. 1992, 2000 (5th printing). Chapter 6, "Women in the Fifth to the Tenth Century" by Suzanne Fonay Wemple, pg 74. According to Wemple, Visigothic women of the Iberian Peninsula and the Aquitaine could inherit land and title and manage it independently of their husbands, and dispose of it as they saw fit if they had no heirs, and represent themselves in court, appear as witnesses (by the age of 14), and arrange their own marriages by the age of twenty</ref>

The laws combined the [[Catholic Church]]'s [[Canon law (Catholic Church)|Canon law]], and as such have a strongly [[theocratic]] tone.

The code is known to have been preserved by the [[Moors]],{{citation needed|date=June 2018}} as Christians were permitted the use of their own laws, where they did not conflict with those of the conquerors, upon the regular payment of [[jizya]] tribute. Thus it may be presumed that it was the recognized legal authority of Christian magistrates while the Iberian Peninsula remained under Muslim control. When [[Ferdinand III of Castile]] took [[Córdoba, Spain|Córdoba]] in the thirteenth century, he ordered that the code be adopted and observed by his subjects, and had it translated, albeit inaccurately, into the [[Spanish language]], as the ''[[Fuero Juzgo]]''. The [[Occitan language]] translation of this document, ''Llibre Jutge'', is among the [[Homilies d'Organyà|oldest literary texts]] in that language (c. 1050). In 1910 an English translation of the code by [[Samuel Parsons Scott]] was published,<ref>''The Visigothic Code (Forum Judicum'' (1910) available at http://libro.uca.edu/vcode/visigoths.htm</ref> but it received severe criticism.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Kearley|first1=Timothy|title=Roman Law, Classical Education, and Limits on Classical Participation in America into the Twentieth Century|date=1975|publisher=Veterrimus Publishing|location=Fort Collins, CO|isbn=978-1-7361312-1-3}}, pages 168-172.</ref>