Komans. A dolejjation ro Athens tor such an carh’ period ean he riiled out; an\ possible intliienee on Rome would ha\e been from Magna (iraeeia. In an\ e\ ent the arguments for borrowing fromam’ (ireek s\ stem are weak." Still, the important thing for us is that Roman tradition wished to ha\ e the authority of the m\ th of liorrow ing from the great Solon. A further example can he chosen from the fate of the most famous and widely spread pri\ ate law hook of medieval Cierman\’, the Sdcbsoispicgcl, 'the Saxon Mirror.' It is di\ ided into two parts, l.ini- (hrcht, 'Public Law,' and l.thnnrbt, 'I'eudal Law.' It was a pri\ ate work h\’ an I'Lisr Saxon knight, I'dke ton Repgow, written in Larin before 12;^^', and probabK^ from 1221, 1222 or 1221 1224. Idke translated it into (ierman-an unheard-of step-when asked to do so by his feudal lord, I lover ton I'alkensrein. Lhe translation was into IList Saxon and itself was almost certainly made before I2;^^. I'he work primarily concerns what happened in the bishoprics of Magdeburg and 1 lalberstadt, so much of the contents is restricted to the law of ICast Saxony. 'The Sticbsnispicgcl was enormously popular, eten beyond the bounds of (lermany, to such an extent that of the Ltuidnrbt 200 complete manuscripts surxixe, nearly is’o of the Lcbiinrbt. It was translated iiito .Middle and 1 ligh (ierman, into Dutch and back into Latin; and it is said-but I bate found no trace-into Polish and O.ech." 'Lhe Siicbsoispitgi'V)^ high t|ualiry was its own authorit\' but greater authoritN’ was added unto it. .\s earl\’ as the i;th century it was being treated in North (jermanx' as legislation. In the 14th centurx^ it was being ascribed to great legislators: the lji?i(hrcbt to Charlemagne, the l.cbitrccbt to I'rederick 1 Barbarossa. It remained in some parts of 13 See for my views Watson, Legal Transplants, pp. 25ff. 14 So said by the authoritative Hans Thieme in his introduction, p. 4, to Cl. Von Schwerin, Sachsenspiegel {Landrecht) (Stuttgart, 1964). 93
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