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Updated: June 14, 2025
Among these Lombards, as among our English forefathers, when a man thingavit, i.e. donavit, a gift or bequest to any one, it was necessary, according to law CLXXII., to do it before gisiles, witnesses, and to give a garathinx, or earnest, of his bequest a halm of straw, a turf, a cup of drink, a piece of money as to this day a drover seals his bargain with a shilling, and a commercial traveller with a glass of liquor.
They are the 'laws of our fathers, as far as we have learnt them from ancient men, and are published with the counsel and consent of our princes, judges, and all our most prosperous army, i.e. the barons, or freemen capable of bearing arms; 'and are confirmed according to the custom of our nation by garathinx, that is, as far as I can ascertain from Grimm's German Law, by giving an earnest, garant, or warrant of the bargain.
Whether Rothar gave the garathinx to his barons, or his barons to him, I do not understand: but at least it is clear from the use of this one word that the publication of these laws was a 'social contract' a distinct compact between king and people. From all which you will perceive at once that these Lombards, like all Teutons, were a free people, under a rough kind of constitutional monarchy.
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