Vol. 82 (2017): Vorträge und Forschungen: Recht und Konsens im frühen Mittelalter

Was there consensual rulership and political participation of elites in the Early Middle Ages? Yes indeed, and especially in the realm of law. Since the legal and political unity of the Roman Empire had come to an end in the fifth century, the law codes of the post-Roman successor states had to be built on the consensus of its political elites. Conciliar decrees – thought of as inspired by the holy spirit – were based on the consensus of its participants, too. The common view of the migration period as a time of struggle and chaos is modified in this volume by the observation and analysis of several political fields, in which consensus worked to establish a new legitimation of law and rulership. By transforming coercion into self-obligation consensus had an integrating effect on the successor states, because it worked notwithstanding ethnic and religious differences.