11 Dec When Were the First Written Laws Created

While earlier laws of the law provided for fines and other fairly minor penalties for violations, Hammurabi`s punishments were much harsher: Akkadian kings (actually not in the fictional form remembered by the original Nammus people) had suffered numerous rebellions precisely because they did not have the consent of the people. To avoid the same problems, your-Nammu claimed that the laws came from the gods and that your-Nammu was only the administrator, the intermediary, who transmitted the will of their gods to the people and carried out their commands. The laws all follow the model of conditional sentencing, if-this-then-that, as in this short sample: Laws 215 and 218 illustrate the principle of opposition: a variable of the first law, the result of operations, is modified to create the second. [114] The above principles are, in spirit, far removed from modern systems of general and civil law, but some may be more familiar. One of these principles is the presumption of innocence; The first two laws of the stele prescribe penalties set by the Lex Talionis for unfounded accusations. Written evidence was highly valued, particularly in contractual matters,[131] [42] A crime was punished only once. [132] The statutes also recognized the importance of the accused`s intentions. [123] Finally, the establishment of the Code of Public Stelae was intended to improve access to justice. Whether this is true or not, suggesting that the stele be read to an unjust man (lines 3240`–3254`)[note 1] is a concrete step in this direction, given the inaccessibility of scribe training in Babylonian times. [133] A widely accepted principle underlying the Code is the lex talionis or “an eye for an eye”. Laws 196 and 200 prescribe an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth when one person destroys another`s eye. The penalties established by the lex talionis could be transferred to the sons of the guilty.

[123] For example, Bill 229 states that the death of an owner in the collapse of a house requires the death of the builder of the house. The following law 230 states that if the son of the owner is dead, the son of the builder must also die. [84] Legal history or the history of law is the study of how the law developed and why it changed. Legal history is closely linked to the development of civilizations[1] and is part of the broader context of social history. Some jurists and legal historians have seen the history of law as an account of the development of laws and the technical explanation of the development of those laws in order to better understand the origins of various legal concepts; Some consider legal history to be a branch of intellectual history. Twentieth-century historians viewed the history of law in a more contextual way, more in tune with the thinking of social historians. [2] They saw legal institutions as complex systems of rules, actors and symbols, and saw how these elements interact with society to change, adapt, resist or promote aspects of civil society. These legal historians tended to analyze case histories from the parameters of social science inquiry using statistical methods and to analyze class differences between litigants, petitioners, and others in different legal processes.

By analyzing the outcome of cases, transaction costs and the number of cases closed, they began an analysis of legal institutions, practices, procedures and pleadings that gives a more complex picture of the law and society than can be done by studying case law, jurisprudence and the Civil Code. [3] The legal system of the United States developed primarily from the English common law system (with the exception of the State of Louisiana, which continued to follow the French civil system after its admission to statehood). Some concepts of Spanish law, such as the doctrine of prior appropriation and community ownership, still exist in some American states, particularly those that were part of the Mexican cession in 1848. The Code of Hammurabi was introduced throughout the country and united people under the law and not just through conquest. Unlike the Akkadian Empire, which found it necessary to place handpicked officials to administer their conquered cities, Hammurabi controlled his empire by law. In the prologue to his code, he makes it clear not only that these are divine laws, but that in their application only the good of the people was at the heart of their heart: after the Norman conquest of England, which introduced Norman legal concepts into medieval England, the powerful judges of the English king developed a precedent that became common law. [33] In particular, Henry II. He developed a system of royal courts administered by a small number of judges who lived in Westminster and travelled throughout the kingdom. Henry II also introduced the Clarendon Assizes in 1166, which allowed jury trials and reduced the number of trials by combat.[34] Louis IX de France also undertook important legal reforms and, inspired by ecclesiastical trials, extended the canonical system of evidence and procedure of inquisition to the royal courts.

In addition, judges no longer went around in circles about their jurisdiction, and jurors were appointed by the litigants and not by the sheriff. [34] Moreover, in the 10th century. First based on Scandinavian trade customs, then consolidated by the Hanseatic League, merchants took shape in the nineteenth century, allowing merchants to act according to familiar standards rather than the many fragmented types of local law. A forerunner of modern commercial law, the merchant of law emphasizes freedom of contract and the alienability of property. [35] The codex is relatively well understood, but some points in its vocabulary are controversial. As mentioned earlier, the terms awīlum and muškēnum have proven difficult to translate. They probably refer to a male member of a higher and lower social class. [144] Wolfram von Soden suggested in his Akkadian dictionary that muškēnum was derived from šukênum, “to bow/plead.” [145] As a word for a man of lower social status, it has survived, perhaps from a Sumerian root, in Arabic (miskīn), Italian (meschino), Spanish (mezquino), and French (petty).

[146] However, some earlier translators, who also tried to explain the special treatment of the muškēnum, translated it as “leper” and even “noble.” [147] Some translators have provided stilted readings for awīlum, such as “lord”,[148] “elite man,”[149] and “member of the aristocracy”; [150] Others left it untranslated. [151] Some legal concepts have also proved difficult to translate.