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About fourscore years after the conquest of Italy, their traditional customs were transcribed in Teutonic Latin, and ratified by the consent of the prince and people: some new regulations were introduced, more suitable to their present condition; the example of Rotharis was imitated by the wisest of his successors; and the laws of the Lombards have been esteemed the least imperfect of the Barbaric codes.
Lex Wisigothorum, iv, 2, 7 and 9. Tacitus, Germania, 21. Legis Liutprandi, ii, 7. Lex Wisigothorum, iv, 5, I. Lex Alemannorum, Tit., i. Lex Baiuvariorum, Tit., i. Lex Wisigothorum, iv, 2, 20. Edictum Rotharis, i, 121. Lex Wisigothorum, iv, 2, 13. Cf. Capitula addita ad legem Alemannorum, 29. Lex Saxonum, viii, 2.
The dowry, then, was to revert to the children or grandchildren at the death of the wife; if there were none such, to the parents or relatives who had given her in marriage; these failing, it escheated to the Crown so according to Rotharis.
Her innocence was afterwards proved, and on the death of Ariowald the Lombards treated her with the greatest respect, and raised Rotharis, her second husband, to the throne. He, too, died, and Aribert, uncle of the queen, was next made king. On his death, his two sons, Bertarit and Godebert, disputed the succession.
The ignorance of the Lombards in the state of Paganism or Christianity gave implicit credit to the malice and mischief of witchcraft, but the judges of the seventeenth century might have been instructed and confounded by the wisdom of Rotharis, who derides the absurd superstition, and protects the wretched victims of popular or judicial cruelty.
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