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CHAP. X.: The same Subject continued. - Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, Complete Works, vol. 2 The Spirit of Laws [1748]

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The Complete Works of M. de Montesquieu (London: T. Evans, 1777), 4 vols. Vol. 2.

Part of: Complete Works of Montesquieu, 4 vols.

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CHAP. X.

The same Subject continued.

SEVERAL capitularies were added to the law of the Lombards, as well as to the Salic and Bavarian laws. The reason of this has been a matter of enquiry: but it must be sought for in the thing itself. There were several sorts of capitularies. Some had relation to political government, others to œconomical, most of them to ecclesiastical polity, and some few to civil government. Those of the last species were added to the civil law, that is, to the personal laws of each nation; for which reason it is said in the capitularies, that there is nothing stipulated* therein contrary to the Roman law. In effect, those capitularies regarding œconomical, ecclesiastical, or political government, had no relation to that law; and those concerning civil government had reference only to the laws of the barbarous people, which were explained, amended, enlarged, or abridged. But the adding of these capitularies to the personal laws, occasioned, I imagine, the neglect of the very body of the capitulaties themselves: in times of ignorance, the abridgement of a work often causes the loss of the work itself.

[* ]See the edict of Pistes, art. 20.