Obscuritas legum: Traditional Law,
Learned Jurisprudence, and Territorial Legisl ation
(The Example of Sachsenspiegel
and /us Municipale Maideburgense)
H i ram Kümper
Jurisprudence deals intrinsically with authoritative texts. L i ke theology,
it is entangled with script and its understanding, which is why both disc
i p l i nes are usually considered hermeneutic. lt is then no wonder that
both share a common problern as weil: the authoritative texts to which
both are bound may be quite old. And this is why legal hermeneutics
sometimes faces chal lenges-or even fails.1 Like any other text, a lawbook
that has been preserved for a lang time with only a few or even no
adaptations, may certainly become obscure. The consequences of that
obscurity w i l l be the focus of this paper.
The argument w i l l be unfolded in three steps. F i rst, I w i l l introduce
both the Saxon M i rrar and the Magdeburg Law as parts of a common
Saxon Law (ius Saxoniae), as an insoluble amalgam, and as incredible
successes in medieval and early modern Europe over a period of at least
five hundred years.2 I wi II then, secondly, go on to discuss briefly the
problems that arose through the conti nuing use of outdated legal texts
The body of I iterature on this problern is already vast. To name but one title,
Obscurity and Clarity in the Law: Prospects and Challenges, ed. Anne Wagner and
Sophie Cacciaguidi-Fahy (Aidershot: Ashgate, 2008), provides multiple challenging
perspectives.
I have tried to trace this enormaus influence in my doctoral thesis: Sachsenrecht:
Studien zur Geschichte des sächsischen Landrechts in Mittelalter und früher
Neuzeit (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2007). There are quite a number of works
published in English on the Saxon Mirror, including a translation: Maria Dobozy,
ed., The Saxon Mirror: A Sachsenspiegel of the Fourteenth-Century (Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 1 999), but only a few on the Magdeburg Law.
For readers who are unfamiliar with Ge-man the bi-lingual popular book Saxon
Mirrar and Magdeburger Law: The Groundwork for Europe (Potsdam: Handel und
Wandel, 2005), is a good starting point.
0BSCURITAS LEGUM 125
that had become l i nguistically obscure. and present contemporary voices
that called for a reaction to their use. As we w i l l see, however, none of
those contemporaries was interested in ceasing to use these texts or replacing
them with some more modern or more efficient code. Rather,
people were astonishingly keen to keep their legal tradition. ln a third
step. I will review a number of very different attempts to adapt this traditional
Saxon law to the interests and needs of a changingjuridical culture
from medieval to early modern times.
lus Saxoniae: The Saxon Mirrar and Magdeburg Law as a Legal
Amalgam
The Saxan Mirrar (Sachsenspiegel) is the earl iest i n a series of vernacular
law-books that gave German lega I culture its character throughout the
later Middle Ages.J lt was written in the first quarter of the thirteenth
century by one Eike from the small village of Repgow near Magdeburg
and Halberstadt i n the then comparatively newly colonized areas east of
the river Eibe. Six charters dated between 1 209 and 1 233 prove that von
Repgow was a historical person 4 Apart from that, everything we know
or presume about h i m rests upon the little he says about himself in the
rhymed preamble to h i s law-book. According to these few verses, he had
first written his book in Latin and was then encouraged to translate it
into German by Earl Hoyer von Falkenstein. The Latin original is lost, but
the German version had tremendous success and is preserved i n some
450 manuscripts, including fragments.
The Saxan Mirrar comprises a collection of customary laws. mostly
dealing with the rural culture from which Eike came and thus with the
rights and laws of both peasants and rural nobil ity. His Mirrar is divided
into two major parts: a part dealing with land-law ( lantrecht), which is
subdivided into three books, and a part dealing with feudal law (lenrecht).
However, Eike also included a number of laws dea l i ng with impe-
The so-called Mühlhäuser Rechtsbuch is generally considered to have been written
at approximately the same time; cf. Hans Patze, „Zum altesten Rechtsbuch der
Reichsstadt Mühlhausen in Thüringen aus dem Anfang des 1 3 . Jahrhunderts.“
Jahrbuch f!ir die Geschichte Mittel- und Ostdeutschlands 9/10 (1961 ): 59-126.
Helmut Coing, Epochen deutscher Rechtsgeschichte (Munich: Beck, 1967), 26, has
termed Germany’s later Middle Ages „the era of law-books“ („Rechtsbücherzeit“).
These can be easily accessed in a reprint in Alexander lgnor, Ober das allgemeine
Rechtsdenken Eikes von Repgow (Paderborn: Schöningh, 1984), 325-30.
1 2 6 HIRAM KOMPER
rial law and with what we would nowadays probably ca l l „public law,“
some of which turned out to be excitingly influentia l . For instance, the
seven electoral princes, who for centuries elected the German king, and
thus the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, appear i n the Saxon Mirrar
for the first time.s
The Magdeburg Law, or lus Maideburgense, as contemporaries often
cal led it, was, like E i ke’s Saxon Mirror, compiled privately by one or more
anonymaus people at roughly the same time, probably only a I ittle after
Eike translated his Mirrar into German. The text’s development i s even
more complex than that of the Saxon Mirror, although it has not been as
well-researched, and i t did not achieve its most widely-dissemi nated
form, the Vulgata, until the end of the thi rteenth century.6 We still Iack a
modern edition of the text today.l The activities of the Magdeburg Panel
of Judges (Schöppenstuhl), a counci I of lay j urists that became the centra I
authority for i nterpreting the law in the towns that claimed to follow the
„Saxon Law,“ have been markedly more prominent in legal h istorical research.
Some of these cities were explicitly given the privi lege to follow
Magdeburg Law by their town Iords; others had produced their own lawbooks,
either privately or at the demand of a city’s counci I, to make sure
their local laws were compatible with Saxon Law. Whenever these towns
were uncertai n about the application of a particular rule of the law, they
asked for help in its i nterpretation from the Magdeburg Panel of Judges,
This is not the place to discuss the sti ll heavily debated origins of the electoral
princes‘ collegium. The last contribution to this debate is Frank-Reiner Erkens,
„Anmerkungen zu einer neuen Theorie über die Entstehung des Kurfürstenkollegs,“
Mitteilungen des Instituts für Osterreichische Geschichtsforschung 1 1 9
(201 1 ) : 376-8 1 ; and the last survey of the conflicting positions was carried out
by Thomas Ertl, „Alte Thesen und neue Theorien zur Entstehung des Kurfürstenkollegiums,“
Zeitschrift für historische Forschung 30 (2003): 61 9-4 2.
The Magdeburg Law has probably not been as weil researched as the Saxon Mirrar
because legal historians of the ni neteenth century judged it unsuccessful in its
attempt to harmonize Saxon and learned legal tradition; cf., for instance, Otto
Stobbe, Geschichte der deutschen Rechtsquellen. vol. 1 (Braunschweig: Duncker &
Humblot, 1 860), 379, 387.
There are five different editions from the eighteenth and n ineteenth centuries.
none of which meets modern Standards. The division and sequence of the chapters
and paragraphs differs from one rranuscript, and one edition, to another,
and consequently none of the editions may be said to be the „standard“ one. ln
this essay, I will refer to Alexander von Daniels, ed., Oat buke wichbelde Recht:
Das saechsische Weichbildrecht nach einer Hs. der Kgl. Bibliothek zu Berlin von
1363 (Berlin: Dümmler, 1 853). The manuscript behind this edition is the same
that Homeyer used for his edition of the Saxon Mirrar (see footnote 1 4).
OBSCURITAS LEGI.N 1 27
or another one of the similar panels (Oberhöfe) that quickly developed in
the „Iands of Saxon Law“ in towns like Kraköw, Wrodaw, Olomouc, and
Opava.a
The Magdeburg Panel, however, remained the most authoritative and
farnaus of these panels until far into the sixteenth century, even after it
was officially abolished by Emperor Charles V in 1 54 7. Responses sent
out by the Magdeburg Panel were col lected in manuscripts and later in
print from the fifteenth century onwards, and served as model cases for
thosejudging by Magdeburg Law. The archive of the Magdeburg Panel,
unfortunately, burned during the sack of Magdeburg by T i lly’s troops in
1 63 1 ; so attempts have been made over the last century to collect as
many of these charters as possible in order to reconstruct from them the
basic ideas of Magdeburg Law.9
The combined influence of the Saxan Mirrar and the Magdeburg Law,
as materialized in both the actual town-law ( Weichbildrecht) and the letters
of the Magdeburg Panel of Judges, was enormous. „Common Saxon
Law“ (ius cammune Saxanum) became a catchword during the rise of literacy
in German legal cu lture, especially in the Eastern parts of the E m pire
and the neighbouring k ingdoms, a s early a s the thirteenth century,
but most intensively during the fourteenth and fifteenth. Law-books
were composed in cities in Poland, Moravia, Belarus, Hungary, and the
Baltic. Manuscripts of both the Saxan Mirrar and the Jus Maideburgense,
both often compiled in one manuscript, circulated throughout Central
and Eastern Europe, and towns in Si lesia, Prussia, or Bohemia asked the
Magdeburg Panel of Judges for juridical advice.lO
The inseparability of the two law-books is also i l l ustrated by the fact
that even the Magdeburg Panel frequently referred to the Saxan Mirrar
The German term Oberhof is usually applied to a panel comparable to a Superior
Court, which had a codified procedure for giving juridical advice and whose
judgments could not be appealed. The Magdeburg Panel of Judges was more in·
formal, but-perhaps for this reason?-the most influential of these panels.
These few sentences must suffice to sum up the complex history and i nfluence of
the Magdeburg Panel of Judges. For a more detailed account cf. Heiner LOck. „Der
Magdeburger Schöffenstuhl als Teil der Magdeburger Stadtverfassung,“ in Hanse
– Stadte – Bünde: Die sächsischen Städte zwischen Eibe und Weser um 1500, vol. 1 ,
ed. Matthias Puhle (Magdeburg: Stadtmuseum Magdeburg, 1 996), 1 38-5 1 . 10 An on-going transnational research project at the Sachsische Akademie der
Wissenschaften Leipzig (Germany) will certainly shed more light on this highly
complex process of legal transmission within in the next few years. For more de·
tails and a Iist of publications cf. http:/ /www.magdeburger-recht.eu (last ac·
cessed January 1 1 , 2013).
1 28 HIRAM KOMPER
rather than their own town law (wichbild) when they gavejuridical advice
on Common Saxon Law, or even when Magdeburg itself was a party
to a legal confl ict.11 l n 1 387, for i nstance, four prominent mediators („gekorn
schidelude“), amongst them the bishops of Hal berstadt and Brandenburg,
i ssued a charter concerning a legal dispute between Magdeburg
and its archbishop Al brecht over a salt spring in Groß-Salze (nowadays
Schönbek in Saxony).12 ln their charter they paraphrased the Magdeburg
aldermen’s complaint: the archbishop’s men
had taken possession of the brine and dispersed our burghers and other people,
both clerics and laymen, [and therefore acted] against this chapter of the
common land-law which states: „One shall not expel anyone from his property
holding . . . .“ 13
This refers to I I 24 § 1 of Eike’s Saxon Mirror.14 F rom the fourteenth century
onwards compilers of law-books and the Magdeburg Panel of Judges
distinguished increasingly between the Saxon land-law (Iandrecht) and
town-law (wichbild) but they sti l l tried to compile global depictions of
the Saxon Law for use in both rural and urban contexts.
Saxon Law and Legal Traditionalism
The success of Saxon Law, however, was not without its draw-backs and
caveats, especially in the fifteenth and s ixteenth centuries. On the one
hand, a growing number of contemporaries noted the d i fferences between
customary Saxon law and the learned tradition of the ius commune,
that from the fourteenth century onwards increasingly gained
11 A number of examples are provided in Kümper, Sachsenrecht, 231 -40.
12 Gustav Hertel, ed., Urkundenbuch der Stadt Magdeburg (Halle: Otto Hendel,
1896), 399-403 (No. 629).
1 3 „sek des bornen heft undirwunden und unse borgen mit den andirn papen und
leyen entweret wedder dat capittel des gemeynen lantrechtis, dare steyt: ‚men
schal nymande ute sinen weren wissen . . .“ ‚ (Hertel, Urkundenbuch, p. 402). The
English translation, as elsewhere in this article where not explicitly stated otherwise,
is mi ne.
14 „No one may expel a person from his property holding by court order, even if he
came into it unlawfully, unless the claimant can dispossess him with a legitimate
claim when he is present . . .“ (Dobozy, Saxon Mirror, 100); „Man ne sal niemanne
ut sinen geweren wisen von gerichtes halven, al si he dar mit unrechte an komen,
man ne breke sie eme mit rechter klage, dar he selve tojegenwarde si . . . “ (Carl
Gustav Homeyer, ed., Des Sachsenspiegels erster Theil oder das sächsische
Landrecht, 3rd ed. [Berlin: Dümmler, 1861]. 2 1 4).
0BSCURITAS LEGUM 129
recogn1t1on north of the Alps, as weil as other legal customs, such as
French, Polish, or Flemish ones. On the other hand, legal practitioners
were more and more concerned about the inner structure of both the
Saxon Mirrar and the Jus Maideburgense; to them both seemed to have
been compiled without any system-a Iack that pained the growing
number of Germanjurists who had been trained in the learned laws at
Europe’s universities.
The encounter with other legal traditions was not completely problematic;
it had its positive aspects as weil. l ndeed, for many Germanjurists,
Saxon Law must have seemed more attractive than other traditions-
as its broad reception suggests. When Emperor Charles V. proposed
h i s plans for a new penal code-the later Constitutio Criminalis
Carolina, issued in 1 5 32-at the Augsburg Reichstag in 1 530, the E lectors
of Saxony and Brandenburg
refused to give up their Saxen Law that has been in use by their ancestors as
lang as man can remember, and therefore they would stick to their laws and
would not accept the new penal code.15
The Iack of systematization of both the Saxon Mirrar and the Jus Maideburgense
was more problematic because it was harder to find any reason
for it. l n deed. there is no apparent reason for this Iack of order in both
the Mirrar and the town law-book.16 Some chapters do clearly belang together,
but others give the impression of having been inserted randomly
in the collections. Here, for example. are the opening chapters of book I I I
of the Saxon Mirror.11
I I I 1 Concerning the rape of a girl or a woman, and a I I those who
follow the hue and cry for a red-handed deed.
I I I 2 Concerning priests and Jews who carry arms.
1 1 1 3 No woman bearing a child and no feebleminded person may
be sentenced.
I I I 4 When a person demands back what he transferred or sold.
I I I 5 Whatever a person lends or transfers for safe keeping.
15 “ . . . das se von oeren secziehen rechten, welge uber menschengedencken by oene
gehalten, nicht abstehen wolln, soltn by denselbigen verharren und deysse nuwe
halzsgerichts ordenungh nicht annemen noch in deyselbige bewilligen haben“
(Herbert Grundmann, ed .. Va lenein von Tetleben: Protokoll des Augsburger Reichstages
7530 [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1958). 89).
16 A number of studies have tried to find one. lnstead of naming them all I refer the
reader only to lgnor. Ober das Allgemeines Rechtsdenken, who discusses them all
and gives his own Interpretation.
17 Translations are taken from Dobozy, Saxon Mirror, 56-57.
1 30
1 1 1 6
1 1 1 7
H IRAM KOMPER
lf a servant loses his master’s property at dice.
A Jew need not be a Christian man’s guarantor. lf one accepts
belongings as collateral.
Some of the chapters seem to be l inked thematically. but others do not.
The Mirrar jumps back and forth between matters of procedure, of penal
law, of the law of Obligations, etc. The same is true for its civic equivalent,
the /us Maideburgense. Here is a more or less random sni ppet from the
chapters of one fourteenth-century manuscript of the /us:l8
LXV I I l f someone claims moveable goods from someone eise.
LXVI I I No adult judge may entitle a guardian for his court. What
LXIX
LXX
LXXI
LXX I I
happens i f a man i s asked for aj udgment and is unwilling to
respond.
On minor wounds. lf a suit is barred. On major wounds.
I f someone sells a horse to someone eise.
On theft.
On theft during day l ight.
Like the Saxen M i rror, the Jus Maideburgense Iooks sloppy to the modern
reader-and it seems that it did so a l ready to rather close contemporaries.
From at least the fifteenth century. there were efforts to revise the
Saxon Mirrar both to bring it up to date and (even more i mportantly) to
give it a clear order. Early traces of these efforts can only be guessed at.
ln a Ietter written in early 1 41 1 , Johannes Stalberg, an abbreviator from
Northern Germany working at the papal court, praised his friend
Dietrich von Niem for the positive effects of his engagement with the
Saxen law („sentencias Saxonicas“), and also referred to Dietrich’s corrective
work on the Mirror-sadly without providing detai ls.19
in 1 493, the Common Superior Court of Altenburg and Leipzig proposed,
in the course of a d i scussion about new procedures. „that the
Saxon Mirrar be reformed so that one may continue tojudge by common
Saxon Law.“20 lt might weil be that this proposal was a reaction to the
rule Prince Albrecht had imposed on the Superior Courtjust a few years
18 Von Daniels, Dat buke wichbelde Recht, col. 74.
1 9 Hermann Heimpel, Dietrich von Niem (c. 1340-1418} (Münster: Aschendorff,
1932). 3 1 7 : „0 quam laudabilis et felix vestre huius sapiencie et studii l itterarum
infinitorumque I abarum vestrorum finis, qui correctione des Spigels.“ 20 „ltem dass der Sachsenspiegel gereformiret werde also das man noch land·
leufiges Sechsisches Recht spreche“ (Theodor Muther, „Kleiner Beitrag zur Ges·
chichte der sächsischen Konstitutionen und des Sachsenspiegels.“ Zeitschrift flir
Rechtsgeschichte 4 ( 1864]: 169).
OBSCURITAS LEGUM 1 3 1
before, i n 1 488:
At this court, everything shall bejudged ‚:Jy Saxon Laws, as far as they are lawful,
still i n use, and clearly expressed. But everything that is not regulated, is
obscure or is incomprehensible shall bejudged and explained according to the
common laws [sei I. the ius commune].21
The Saxonjurists in Altenburg and Leipzig i n 1 493 probably feared the
i mplementation of the learned laws, the ius commune, by virtue of the
prince’s ruling. Only few decades later, when Prince Johann Friedrich
outlined new procedures in 1 534, the Court refused to follow them because
they did not go far enough in terms of legal reformation: „Especially
the obscure book of the Saxon Mirror with its many double meanings
has caused many unlawful j udgements and quarre! in our lands.“22
The passage that I quote here goes on for some time and gives a very
graphic i mpression of how annoyed the panel was with the Situation.
Prince Johann Friedrich did not, however, reform the Saxon Mirror.
He replied that such an endeavour was impossible at that moment and
the longed-for reform had to wait a number of years. ln the meantime, a
number of aids had been developed to address the problems the voiced
by the Common Superior Court of Altenburg and Leipzig in 1 493.
Explaining and Systematizing Saxon Law: Early Glosses, Commentaries,
and other Exegetic Aids-from Manuscript
to Print
We might weil start with one outstanding example of the ways in which
efforts were made to render the Saxon Mirrar more useful. Four manuscripts
of the text, a l l beautifully i l l um inated, have caught scholarly interest
since at least the middle of the eighteenth century. All stem from
one and the same lost ancestor and therefore share many visual aspects.
21 „Es sullen auch alle Sachenn vor dem gerichte nach Sechßigischenn Rechtenn, wu
das rechtlich vnd bestendigk, ausgedruckt. vorsprochenn werddenn wu es aber
vnaußgedrucket tunke! adder vnvornemlic, ist, Sal es erföllunge vnd dewtunge
nach gemeynen Rechtenn nehmen“ (Christian Gottfried Kretschmann, Geschichte
des Churfurstlich Sachsischen Oberhofgericnts zu Leipzig von seiner Entstehung
1483 an bis zum Ausgange des 18. Jahrhunderts: nebst einer kurzen Darstellung
seiner gegenwärtigen Verfassung [Leipzig: Crusius, 1804], 36).
22 „Sunderlich das vnvorstentlich Buch des Sachssenspiegels des zwespoldigen
vorstandt vilerley vnbiliche vrtail gefallen vnd im lande vil Zcang vnnd hadder“
(Muther, „Kleiner Beitrag,“ 1 70-7 1 ) .
1 32 HIRAM KOMPER
I w i l l not discuss the famous i l lustrations here at any length since their
function is still uncertain despite the multitude of plausible interpretations
that have already been proposed.23 Most researchers now agree
that these i l lustrations are far more than mere decorations, but hardly
anyone would sti l l propose that the scenes served as a way of transmitting
the lega I ideas of the Mirrorto the i II iterate, as some sort of consuetudines
pauperum, so to speak. They might i ndeed have helped readers
understand the text. but they are by no means a Substitute for it. Rather,
these i llustrations might be seen as a sort of explanatory commentary, as
weil as a mnemonic device to help find articles quickly.
Fig. 1: Scene from one of the Saxon Mirror’s codices picturati (Wolfenbüttel, HerzogAugust-
Bibliothek, Cod. Guelf. 3.1. Aug. 2°, fol. 34r).24
23 They are discussed i n Dagmar Hüpper, „Funktionstypen der Bilder in den Codices
picturati des Sachsenspiegels.“ in Pragmatische Schriftlichkeil im Mittelalter:
Erscheinungsformen und Entwicklungsstufen, ed. Hagen Keller, Klaus Grubmüller,
and Nikolaus Staubach (Munich: Fink, 1992}, 231 -49. A comprehensive discussion
in Engilsh of the most important aspects of the quest may be found in Madeline
H. Cavines and Charles H. Nelso, „Silent Witnesses, Absent Warnen, and the
Law Courts in Medieval Germany.“ in Fama: The Politics of Talk and Reputation in
Medieval Europe, ed. Thelma Fenster and Daniel Lord Smail (lthaca: Garneil University
Press, 2003), 4 7-72.
24 Drawing taken from Christian Ulrich Grupen, Teutsche Alterthumer zur Erleuterung
des SI3Chsischen und Schwäbischen Land- und Lehn-Rechts (Hannover: J.W.
0BSCURITAS LEGVM 133
i n another small group of manuscripts, all dating from the fifteenth
century and seemingly from the diocese of H i l desheim, not too far from
the Saxon Mirror’s place of origin, the sequence of the articles is rearranged
into what was apparently a clearer order for the compiler of their
archetype, a lthough this new order is no clearer than the old one in
many places, at least for a modern reader.25 Ind ices l i kewise appear
slowly in manuscripts of the Saxon Mirrar from the fifteenth century onwards.
These indices usually have little in common with modern ones,
but they do combine a lphabetical groupings with thematic ones.
Fig. 2: Index for a manuscript of the Richtsteig Landrecht
(Göttweig, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. 364rot, fol.
526r).
Schmidt, 1 746), 104.
2s Cf. Kümper, Sachsenrecht, 1 60-61.
Burgen I wu man umbe
vorgeburgette schult
clagen sol vD
Behalden I was eyn man
zcu behalden thut x1iij
ab der sti rbit, dem icht zcu
behalden getan ist xvj
Burghafftig I wer der sy
xxxiU
Dingslete zcu vorbithenj
wer zcu dinge komen salj
Dybe I was diben ader robern
abegeyagit wirt xv
Wer umbe dube gefangen
wirt xxxj
134 HIRAM KCMPER
G l asses were yet another means of adapting the Saxon Mirrar to new
circumstances and making it more useful-and one of these new circumstances
definitely was the spreading of the learned laws, the ius commune,
i n northern Europe. We have a l ready mentioned some of the
Saxonjurists‘ d i strust of, and even resistance to this movement. Others,
however, thought rather of harmonizing the two legal spheres.
Already sametime in the 1 330s, Johann von Buch {c. 1 2 90-c. 1 356), a
learned Jurist who had been trained in Bologna, annotated the land-law
of the Saxon Mirrar with correspond ing passages from the ius commune.
This widely recognized gloss (glossa) was particularly influential for the
development of Saxon Law in two ways: first, Johann came u p with the
idea that the Saxon Mirrar was modelled upon a privilege that Charlemagne
had given the Saxons after their defeat and Christianization, and
that Eike had merely translated this privilege and added a few chapters
of his own-which, consequently, Johann d id not gloss. Second, his gloss
succeeded in harmonizing and explaining the contrad ictory and obscure
passages of the Mirror. Johann even went so far as to qu ietly reconfigure
the Saxon Law in a number of ways.26 The gloss soon spread in a vast
number of manuscripts along with the Saxon Mirrar and was even frequently
quoted as an authoritative source along with the Mirrar and the
Magdeburg Law. The latter a l so was glossed during the fifteenth century.
Johann’s gloss was followed by a number of others, and also further
adapted, so that the history of the text has grown very complex, but a l most
any edition suffices to give u s a n impression o f the effect o f the
gloss on the presentation of the Saxon Mirrar and its practical use. Fig. 3
is an example of the way the text is presented in a number of s i m i la r editions
from the sixteenth century. Three phrases from a n article of the
Saxon Mirror, printed in bold, are glossed, with their first words figuring
as indices: Es mag auch kein weibletc., lueignnletc. and Spreche sie aber
das es ihr/etc. The gloss explains or specifies certa i n details and adds
parallels or evidence from other legal sources-notably the Magdeburg
Law, abbreviated with Weich. Moreover, in this specific edition, a number
of Latin allegationes have been inserted between the text of the
Saxon Mirrar and the gloss. The redundancies between these a l legations
and the gloss remind us that three texts-the Saxon Mirrar, the gloss, and
the a llegations-have been compi led here.
26 Details are provided by Bernd Kannowski, Oie Umgestaltung des Sachsenspiegels
durch die Buch’sche Glosse (Hannover: Hahn‘ sehe Buchhandlung, 2008).
0BSCURITAS LEGVIA 1 3 5
Fig. 3: Printed text of a Saxon Mirror with Gloss (Christi an Zobel, Leipzig, 1 569)
Article 1 1 1 78 provides a good example of the way in which Johann
glossed the Saxon Mirror. This article reads:
[§ 1 .] The king and every judge preside over capital crimes and serious felo·
nies, the property of each of his men and kin, and does not act disloyally
thereby.
[§ 2.] 1n turn, the man may an behalf of his king andjudge certainly oppose any
injustice and help resist it i n all ways possible. Even where his kin or Iord is
concerned, he does not act disloyally.27
27 Dobozy, Saxon Mirror, 136; „[§ 1.] Die koning unde iewelk richtere mut wol richter
over hals unde over hant unde over erve iewelkes sines mannes unde mages,
1 36 HIRAM KOMPER
Maria Dobozy, whose translation is quoted here, understands the second
paragraph as an imperative for judicial assistance. This is in line with the
currently accepted Interpretation of the paragraph,2a but some scholars
read § 2 in another way. They-including me-would translate it rather
as:
[§ 2.) A man must also resist injustice perpetrated by his king or judge, and
help in resisting it all the time, and also his kin or Iord, and does not act disloy·
ally.
8oth translations are j ustified linguistically, but Johann von Buch must
have understood 1 1 1 78 § 2 in the second way. Still, he could not imagine
anyone actively resisting the Roman king and so he comments:
Note with care that he writes: his king, and not: the king. For by saying his king
he meansjust any king, such as the king of Bohemia or of Denmark. One may
lawfully resist these kings and their judges. Had he said the king, he would
have meant the Roman king. And this would have been unjust, for nobody may
lawfully resist him . . . . 29
Johann von Buch was doubtlessly the most infl uential g l ossator of the
Saxon Mirror, but he was not the only one. Numerous less known legal
writings blossomed from the fifteenth century onwards to explain certain
passages of the Mirrar and Magdeburg Law, written not only by
practitioners from the Panels of Judges (Schöffenstühle) but now also by
legal professors of the ernerging German universities, especially from
Leipzig. One of the more farnaus examples might be Dietrich von Bocksdorf,
who composed a number of small pieces to adapt the Saxon Mirrar
to contemporary situations.3o As time went on, the printed editions of
unde ne dut dar an weder sine trüwe nicht. [§ 2.) De man mut ok wol sime koninge
unde si me richtere unrechtes wederstand, und san helpen weren to aller
wis, al si he sin mach oder sin herre, unde ne dut dar an weder sine trüwe nicht“
(Homeyer, Des Sachsenspiegels Erster Theil, 374). 28 I discuss this problem in more detail in Kumper, Sachsenrecht, 555-62. 29 “ Vnde sineme koninge et cetera. Dit nym behendeliken, dat hir steyt: Sineme koninge,
vnde nicht: Deme koninge. Wente dar mede, dat he secht: Sime koninge. dar
mede menet he sunderlike koninge, alseden koningh van Semen edder dene van
Denemarken. Dessen koningen mot me1 wol alle des wedderstan, des men
eneme richtere wedderstan mod. Hedde he auer gesecht: Deme koninge. so hedde
he de Romeschen koningh ghemenet. So were dat vnrecht ghewesen, we deme en
man nemand wedderstan . . : (Franz-Michael Kaufmann, ed., Glossen zum
Sachsenspiegel-Landrecht. Buch’sche Glosse, vol. 3 [Hannover: Hahn’sche Buchhandlung,
2002). 1 459; italics are all taken from the original).
30 Cf. Christoph H. F. Mayer, „Dietrich von Bocksdorf (t 1 466) – Kleriker, Jurist,
Professor. Zugleich zur .Unvernunft‘ heimischer Gewohnheit im Zeitalter der
Rezeption,“ in Tangermünde, die Altmark und das Reichsrecht: Impulse aus dem
0BSCURITAS LEGUM 137
the Mirrar a n d the Magdeburg Law became more academic in their e d i torial
design t o suit the new needs o f legal culture. The most successful
editions of both law-books were published in Leipzig, beginning in 1 535.
They were edited by the law professor Christoph Zobel (1 499-1560)
who added to them material drawn from bothjuridical writings and legal
practice.31 After his death, his son-in-law continued to publish editions of
the Mirrar, the last being printed in Heidelberg i n 1 6 1 4.32
One of the most characteristic innovations of the early printed editions i s
the inclusion of a remissarium o r repetitarium (Fig. 4 ) to make the Mirrar
more accessible.33 This new type of indexing had emerged already within
Norden des Reiches fur eine europaische Rechtskultur, ed. Heiner Luck (Stuttgart:
S. Hirzel, 2008), 92-1 4 1 . A detailed study on this fasci natingjurist will soon be
published by Marek Wejwoda (Leipzig).
31 On Zobel cf. Konrad Krause, Alma mater Lipsiensis: Geschichte der Universitä t
Leipzig von 7409 bis zur Gegenwart (Leipz1g: Leipziger Universitatsverlag, 2003),
49-50.
32 A handlist of afl these editions and their content is provided in H1ram Kumper,
ed., Secundum Jura Saxonica: Sechs prozessrechtliche Traktate der fruhen Neuzeit
(Nordhausen: Bautz, 2005), 106-1 1 .
33 More examples than the ones mentioned i“ere are discussed i n Kümper, Sachsen1
3 8 HIRAM KOMPER
manuscript culture and replaced the thematic ind ices (like the one
shown in Fig. 2) in many manuscripts. The afore named Dietrich von
Bocksdorf, for instance, compiled a huge but as yet unedited repertorium
that included references to the Saxon Mirror, the Magdeburg Law, and
the law-book of Meissen, a close relative of both the law-books.34
ln view of the popularity of the Saxon Law in the sixteenth century,
on the one hand, and the number of different editions available on the
book market, on the other, an edition’s comprehensiveness and ease of
use must have been major selling points. Figure 5, for instance, shows a
table from a 1 545 edition of the Saxon Mirror in which its editor, Nikolas
Wolrab, l ists a l l the advantages of his new edition.
the text and a gloss in both German and Latin
the Subdivision of the capitula into paragraphs
additiones to each article
a revision of all allegationes to the learned laws
an a lphabetical repertorium
The allegationes that Wolrab mentions have already been shown above
in Fig. 3. Some were attributed to Dietrich of Bocksdorf, others were
added by unnamed jurists, and still others probably by the editors, like
Christoph Zobel, themselves.
The growing concern about the divergences between traditional
Saxon Law and the learned laws ultimately generated another type of
l iterature, the differentiaejuris, which can also be considered an effort to
interpret the obscurities of the Saxon Law. These were thematic compi lations
that sought to resolve apparent contradictions between the two
traditions with respect to specific poi nts. Sebastian Stelbagius’s Epitome
(Fig. 6) offer one example of this genre.
recht, 1 80-87.
3< There is no edition. A manuscript probably written in 1464 by one of Bocksdorfs
pupils is preserved in Zwickau, Ratsschulbibliothek, Ms. I I , VIII, 28.
0BSCUR/T AS LEGUM 139
Fig. 5: Editorial report for a Saxen Mirror printed in 1 545 by Nikolaus Wolrab (Leipzig)
140 HIRAM KOMPER
‚6li.ITO : J’VIUS ClVILl
lVRE ClYIL.I uinct �quip
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ST AT V; uttÖS A X.O:obtnubitH.quttt/li. mooiYm b“btbll pl urU�Wum r{ouram .(anbcr.
h’b. J art; J•· QJ! pdfltx utr.Jp p.srtcßnt pm·s tr}h l,
hmC fl rcs .Nt duuflMs mttr pgccs qut crit cfiJd.
4tni..t[l utro mdtui{lblllf.ptltts Iudic.K uburium cfi.
‚ur daTt udtt , tudlc•ri t�tmcR dcbct pro tUo, pro
quo plurts fo.ctur.t bon..e r.attontr, V t ll0l4111r. 4- q. s.
fi tcftcs ,111 glo/J: unct4fitttlll ver(: /l a111cm Ncwrer
poßi dct.‘-m nojfu , iff p,loff dt ttjltbut.
Q9z dicirur JuRa polfcfsio
Quer: cx drulo (;( caa.fis • ad acqtrl•
rtnda rcrum dominia iurcgentiunt
narurali 8C Ciulli lcg!t.imis , acquffica
tft.
Q… fu nr inrcrdita mupmoda:
pomCsionis
Vnicum intttdichnn Vndc VI ,
pro recupcranda poffefsione d.atur
Cul &: ad quid <latur hoc inttr ..
diClum
Daturhoc imerdidum ei,quiVI
non lgllima x po ffefaionc rerum
Immobilium dcicdus cfr, quo poffcf ..
Iioncm
F 19. 6: Sebastian Stelbagius, Epitome sive summa universae doctrinae iusticiae legalis
(Bautzen, 1564)
The Compendiumjuris civilis et Saxonici, which was written sometime
around 1537 by Konrad Lagus, but not printed until 1597, provides another
example of an effort to address the obscurities of the Saxon Law. 35
35 Cf. Theodor Muth er, Zur Geschichte der Rechtswissenschaft und der Universitaten
in Deutschland. Gesammelte A ufsatze (Jena: H. Dufft, 1876), 319-23. On Lagus cf.
Hans Er ich T roje, „Konrad Lagus (um 1500-1546) und die europaische
0BSCURITAS LEGUM 1 4 1
The Saxon Mirror, Lagus complai ned, was „written in such a disorderly
manner that not one single piece is in the right place, but it switches back
and forth between this and that.“36 Stelbagius and Lagus, however, were
a l ready headed down the path to the usum modemus pandectarum, the
specific form of academic Germanjurisprudence that struggled with the
d i screpancies between traditional and learned laws unt i l vi rtua lly the
end ofthe Üld Empire i n 1 806.
The Constitutiones electorales Saxonicae Divi Augusti and Melc
h i or K l i ng’s Revised Saxon Mirrar-a Postscri pt?
We have now seen a number of d i fferent attempts to keep a law-book
that had become obscure in terms of both its meaning and its structure
accessible within a changingjurid ical culture. Same, especially editors,
who wanted their books to be sold, were more optimistic about this possibil
ity than others. Pessi mists, on the other hand, emphasised the obscurity-
especially in terms of structure-of the old-fashioned law-book.
Among them was Melchior K l ing (1 504-1 571 ), a professor of Ca non
Law at Leipzig University .37 The Saxon Mirror, Kling asserted in a Ietter
to the E lector August of Saxony, was written without any systematic arder
(„gantz ane ordnung“) so that no-one could actua lly follow its rules
(„das sich schir Niemandts darein Richten kan“)-and still it was used in
every-day jurid ical practice („Vnd ist doch in teglicher vbung“). This is
why he, Kling, had planned „to systematize“ the Saxon law „so that everyone
could easily understand it and find his way through it.“38 His idea
Rechtswissenschaft,“ in Wittenberg: Ein Zentrum europäischer Rechtsgeschichte
und Rechtskultur, ed. Heiner Lück and Heinrich de Wall (Cologne: Böhlau, 2006),
1 50-73; and Gerhard Theuerkauf, Lex, Speculum, Compendium iuris: Rechtsaufzeichnung
und Rechtsbewußtsein in Norddeutschland vom 8. bis zum 16. Jahrhundert
(Cologne: Böhlau, 1968), 1 83-216.
36 “ . . . so unordentlich geschrieben, das darinnen kein stücke schier ist, wie es sol,
in sonderheit vorgenommen, sondern hin und herwider von diesen und von
jenen rechtsfällen“ (Konrad Lagus, Compendiumjuris civi/s et Saxonici [Magdeburg:
Francke 1 597] , 4).
3 7 On his life and writings cf. Ralf lieberwirth, „Melchior Kling {1 504- 1 5 7 1 ) , Reformations-
und Reformjurist,“ in Wittenberg: ein Zentrum europäischer Rechtsgeschichte
und Rechtskultur, ed. Heiner LOck (Cologne: Böhlau, 2006), 35-62.
38 „in eine solche ordnung zu bringen das es ein Jeder leichtlieh verstehen vnnd sich
drein richten solt“ (Melchior Kling, Das Gantze Sechsisch Landrecht mit Text und
Gloß in eine richtige Ordnung gebracht [Leipzig, 1 572], introduction [no pagina1
42 HIRAM KO\IIPER
was actually fairly simple and in perfect keeping with the legal thinking
of contemporaryjurists trained in the learned laws. lnstead of the traditional
three books of the Saxon Mirror. he divided the material into four
books: one on the legal personae (the king, dukes, suitors, testators, etc.),
a second on procedures (citation, sentences, appellation, etc.), a third on
various kinds of suits brought for civil matters, such as the law of Obligations,
inheritance, etc., and a fourth on penal law. According to this plan,
K l i ng hoped to
write it in easily understandable German words, with the grace of God, so that
not one single line in the whole Saxon Mirrar would remain that was not
placed in the proper chapter.39
How d id Kling realize this plan? First, as proposed in his Ietter, he arranged
the articles of the Saxon Mirrar in a completely new sequence inspired
by the dogmatic structures of the learned laws. He maintained a
reference to each article’s place i n the existing editions of the Mirror,
however. in order to facilitate comparison with those editions and on
account of the huge existing l iterature. He also provided cautious comments
on the articles and paragraphs he had newly combined. Here are
two examples of his work.
The first example (Fig. 7) explains the meaning of article I I I 58 to the
contemporary reader, for whom it might weil have been problematic:
The imperial princes of the realm shall have as Iord no layperson other than
the king. A banner fief that makes a man a crown vassal is valid only when it is
conferred by the king. Whatever 3 second man receives before the king does
not make him first holder of the estate because another had already been invested
with it before. Therefore. the estate cannot elevate him to a crown vassal.
40
This rule had been obsolete for a long time because of the growing complexity
of the Empi re’s feudal landscape. Kling updates the article by explaining
that nobody can become an imperial prince of the realm by
tion or foliation)).
39 „wolte es mit gueten verstendigen deutzschenn wortenn, vermittelst gottlicher
hülffe dermassen schreiben das ln gantzen Sachssenspiegel nicht ein einige Zeil
se1n solte, die nicht vnter Iren ordentlich tittl gebrach were“ (Kling, Das Gantze
Sechsisch Landrecht, i ntroduction).
•o Dobozy, Saxon Mirror, 1 3 1 ; „Des rikes vorsten ne solen nenen Ieien to herren
hebben, wen den koning. lt n‘ is nen vanlen, dar die man af moge des rikes vorste
wesen, he ne untva’t von deme koninge. Svat so en ander man vor ime untveit,
dar n’is jene die vorderste an’me lene nicht, went it en ander vor ime untfeng,
unde ne mach des rikes vorste dar af n1cht sin“ (Homeyer, Des Sachsenspiegels
Erster Theil, 354).
0BSCURITAS LEGUM 143
other means than by royal investiture. He does not, however, forbid these
princes from form ing feudal bonds with their equals. ln the second
example (Fig. 8), K l i ng first shortens the article. l n full the Saxon Mirrar
I I I 55 states:
None but the king mayjudge the imperial princes at the Ievei of life and health.
As for the Schöffen[-barfreien] class, if they are convicted and sentenced to
capital punishment, then only the bailiff may execute them.41
tr !ltl ct’tccb�ti ;jt\rcn feilen fcaucn ttn�m lcfm rficn �akn3UJl1 t>cn ntg/ ß‘ tfi fcm jtltllccn t-.1 cm S)1an llcV !1\citf%
·t\rfi uon moc gcfcm I er cUJpfilc tl l’cttn t-cn llnn t\6tu9c.
cfn })1an t>OtCitltlt1 tlllm bU rc{lcn fnJftflHI Nl l l!Cr 1111�0′ / fl‘ Cl filr
il8 uucf) cn1pfcct Nr forNrfrc md t an l’Oll tc9cn ( t’mncs Jrncrm
cmyfanem at ) ‚Unl‘ Nfcr mag aud) bc ca�s Stlrtlc tlarn mu
gereut/ ‚Da non Ct&. rt.
·- L 1 N G. 1 Utfj uc.h, rficn ctc. cp 1 „r.ut rr.r.cr m1 t4
C1d)t(tu1 er „““‚ nn • n (C 1 · , mm m t!mau111ff.tn�m rntl fm o r
lci!Jnt .trll nn n 111. nr’l ltllcnJurrm klu m/t>.ltcr friltfltnf4ffllkl
3.UP bfl‘ Ctcf- crc.
‚Z)efjtkh (n(lm ctc. em11 311 1.m tlrtllm 111.11 /(ofd!m jit[c
er htcuor trocrcn,.: a 1 rn.1. n tm.t“tcr I.JnD(t.1kn/ I( t’IJ 0\“ pnu Amt-(i •… . _ … .. . ,j,. . , .. … .-.,,.,.
Fig. 7 and 8: Melchior Kling, Das Gantze Sechsisch Landrecht mit Text und Gloß in eine
richtige Ordnung gebracht (Leipzig 1 572)
K l i ng quotes only the second sentence, leaving aside the king’s high
jurisdiction over the imperial princes. The Schöffen-ar rather Schöffenbarfreie-
who are the subject of the second sentence, were a peculiar
class of men in legal h i story for there is no proof of their existence before
41 Dobozy. Saxon Mirror, 130; „Over de vorsten lif unde ire gesunt ne mut neman
richtere sin, wan die koning. Over scepenbare vrie lüde. svenne se iren lif verwerken
unde verdelet sin, ne mut neman richten wenne die echte vronde bode“
(Homeyer, Des Sachsenspiegels Erster Theil, 351 ) .
1 44 HIRAM KüMPER
the Saxon Mirrar and some scholars have supposed that E i ke might have
i nvented them.42 Consequently, Kl ing notes: „This is no Ionger va l id.“43
K l i ng, however, had not been the only one complaining to the d u kes
of Saxony-in 1 556, for example, Melchior Osse ( 1 506-1 557) also wrote
his famous political testament (Politisches Testament an Augustum
Churfursten zu Sachssen) to the Elector August of Saxony44-and the success
of K l i ng’s revised edition of the Saxon Mirror, which was published
posthumously in 1 572, was doubtlessly much reduced by August of Saxony’s
issuing the Constitutiones electorales Saxonicae j ust a few months
earlier, even though the Constitutiones dealt only with certai n controversial
issues that had arisen from the diversity of norms and legal practices
in the ducal Iands and left a good deal of other matters untouched.4s The
Constitutiones thus never replaced either the Saxon Mirrar or the Magdeburg
Law injuridical practice. Their i nfluence in broad regions of Central
and Eastern Europe was unaffected by the Saxon legislation, and both
law-books continued to be consulted by practitioners and cited injuridical
writings. The i nnovative a pproach and conception that lay at the origin
of these works was a m i lestone i n the history of an astanishing legal
traditionalism within the Iands of Saxon Law that perpetually i nvented
new strategies and formats to guarantee the continued accessibil ity of its
central authoritative texts-a h i story that does certai n ly not end in the
sixteenth century.46
42 The discussion is quite complex and is summarized in Karl Kroeschell, „Von der
Gewohnheit zum Recht: Der Sachsenspiegel im späten Mittelalter,“ in Recht und
Verfassung im Übergang vom Mittelalter zur Neuzeit, vol. 1 , ed. Hartmut
Boockmann, Bernd Moeller, et al. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998),
68-92.
43 „Diß ist auch nicht also in brauch“ (Kling, Das Gantze Sechsisch Landrecht, f.
101 r).
‚4 Cf. Oswald Artur Hecker, ed., Schriften Dr. Melchiors von Osse: mit einem Lebensabriss
und einem Anhange von Briefen und Akten (Leipzig: Teubner, 1 9 22), 280
and 287.
45 Details an the drafting of the Constitutiones are provided by Hermann Theodor
Schletter, Oie Constitutionen Kurfürst August’s von Sachsen vom Jahre 1572. Geschichte,
Quellenkunde und dogmengeschichtliche Charakteristik derselben (Leipzig:
F. A. Brockhaus, 185 7).
46 For a continuation until the early twentieth century cf. Kümper, Sachsenrecht,
285-334.
Obscurity in Medieval Texts
MEDIUM AEVUM QUOTIDIANUM
SONDERBAND XXX
Obscurity in Medieval Texts
edited by
Lucie Dolezalova, Jeff Rider,
and Alessandro Zironi
Krems 2013
Reviewed by
Tamas Visi
and Myriam White-Le Goff
Cover designed by Petr Dolezal with the use of a photo of the interior of
the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem (photo Lucie Dolezalova)
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CHARLES UNIVERSITY RESEARCH DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS
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80TH AT THE FACULTY O F HUMANITIES, CHARLES UNIVERSITY IN PRAGUE
UNDDER
CZECH SCIENCE FOUNDATION
WITHIN THE RESEARCH PROJECT
„INTERPRETING AND APPROPRIATING ÜBSCURITY
IN MEDIEVAL MANUSCRIPT CULTURE“
(GACR P405/1 0/Pl 1 2)
A l l e Rechte vorbehalten
-ISBN 978-3-901094-32-13‘.3
Herausgeber: Medium Aevum Quotidianum. Gesellschaft zur Erforschung der materiellen
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Acknowledgements
List of Figures
T able of Contents
Textual Obscurity in the Middle Ages (lntroduction)
Lucie Dole2alov. Jeff Rider. and Alessandro Zironi
„Ciarifications“ of Obscurity:
Conditions for Proclus’s Allegorical Reading of Plato’s Parmenides 1 5
Florin George Cäl ian
Lucifica nigris tune nuntio regna figuris. Po!!tique textuelle de I‘ obscuritas
dans I es recueils d‘!!nigmes latines du Haut moyen Age (V He-V I I I • s.) 3 2
Christiane Veyrard-Cosme
The Enigmatic Style in Twelfth-Century French Literature 49
Jeff Rider
Mise en abyme in Marie de France’s „Laüstic“ 63
Susan Small
Perturbations of the Soul: Alexander of Ashby and Aegidius of Paris an
Understanding Biblical Obscuritas 75
Greti Dinkova-Bruun
Versus obscuri nella poesia didascalica grammatocale del X I I I sec. 87
Carla Piccone
Disclosing Secrets: Vorgil on Middle High German Poems 1 1 0
Alessandro Zironi
Obscuritas tegum: Traditional Law. Learned Jurisprudence, and Territorial
Legislation (The Example of Sachsenspiegel and fus Municipale Maideburgense) 124
Hiram Kümper
Ta Be Born (Aga in) from God:
Scriptural Obscurity as a Theological Way Out for Cornelius Agrippa 1 45
Noel Putnik
Obscuritas in Medoeval and Humanist Translation Theories 157
R!!ka Forrai
The Darkness Within:
First-person Speakers and the Unrepresentable 1 72
Päivi M. Mehtonen
Contributors 1 90
Index nominum 1 94
Index rerum 197
Acknowledgements
This volume grew out of a conference held in Prague in October 6-8. 201 1 .
The conference and the book were supported by a post-doctoral research
grant from the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic, “ l nterpreting and
Appropriating Obscurity i n Medieval Manuscript Culture“ no. P405/1 0/
P1 1 2 undertaken at the Faculty of Arts at the Charles University in Prague,
by The Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports through l nstitutional
Support for Longterm Development of Research Organizations to the
Faculty of Humanities of the same university (PRVOUK 1 8 and UNCE
204002), and by the European Research Council under the European
Community’s Seventh Framewerk Programme ( FPJ/2007-2013) I ERC
grant agreement No. 263672. We are much grateful to these i nstitutions.
Further thanks goes to the individual contributors to this volume who have
been very quick and patient during the process, as weil as to Petr Dolezal
for the cover design and Adela Novakova for the index.
List of Figures
Figure 1 : Scene from one of the Saxon Mirror’s codices picturati (Wolfenbuttel, HerzogAugust-
Bibliothek, Cod. Guelf. 3.1 . Aug. 2°, fol. 34r).
Figure 2: Index for a manuscript of the Richtsteig Landrecht (Göttweig, Sti ftsbibliothek,
Cod. 364rot, fol. 526r).
Figure 3: Printed text of a Saxon Mirror with Gloss (Christi an Zobel, Leipzig, 1 569).
Figure 4: A remissorium from a Saxon Mirror edited tn 1536 by Chistoph Zobel (Leipzig).
Figure 5: Editorial report for a Saxon Mirror pri nted in 1545 by Nikolaus Wolrab
(Leipzig).
Figure 6: Sebastian Stelbagius, Epitome sive summa universae doctrinae iusticiae legalis
(Bautzen, 1 564 ).
Figures 7 and 8: Melchior Kling, Das Gantze Sechsisch Landrecht mit Text und Gloß in eine
richtige Ordnung gebracht (Leipzig 1 572).
MEMO - Medieval and Early Modern Material Culture Online
Medieval and Early Modern Material Culture Online
