THE CAMBRIDGE MEDIEVAL HISTORY I 171
King, Court, and Law in the Vandal Kingdom
11-10. King, Court, and Law in the Vandal Kingdom
In war the king is in chief command over the troops and issues the summons to the weapon-bearing freemen. The arrangement of the army was, like that of the nation, by thousands and hundreds. Larger divisions of troops were placed under commanders appointed especially by the monarch and generally selected from the royal family. The Vandals had been even in their settlements in Hungary a nation of horsemen, and they remained so in Africa. They were chiefly armed with long spears and swords, and were little suited to long campaigns.
Their principal strength lay in their fleet. The ships they commanded were usually small, lightly-built, fast-sailing cruisers which did not hold more than about 40 persons. In the great mobility of the army as well as of the navy lay the secret of the surprising successes which the Vandals achieved. But immediately after Gaiseric's death, a general military decline began. Enervated by the hot climate and the luxury into which they had been allured by the produce of a rich country, they lost their warlike capacity more and more, and thus sank before the attack of the Byzantines in a manner almost unique in history.
The king is the director of the whole external polity. He sends forth and receives envoys, concludes alliances, decides war and peace. On single and peculiarly important questions he may take counsel beforehand with the chiefs of his following, but the royal will alone is absolute.
The Vandals were judged according to their national principles of jurisprudence in the separate hundred districts by the leaders of the thousands. Sentences for political offences were reserved for the king as executor of justice in the national assembly. Legal procedure for the Romans remained the same as before. Judgment was passed on trivial matters by the town magistrates, on greater by provincial governors according to Roman law but in the name of the king. Quarrels between Vandals and Romans were of course settled only in the Vandal court of justice according to the law of the victor. That the king often interfered arbitrarily in the regular legal proceedings of the Romans is not surprising, considering the state of affairs, but a similar arbitrary interference among the Vandals is a circumstance of political importance: treason, treachery against the person of the king and his house, apostasy from the Arian Church come into prominence, so that the life and freedom of individuals were almost at the mercy of the monarch. The laws which the Vandal kings enacted were, as far as we know, for the most part directed against the Romans and the Catholics. In addition to the numerous edicts concerning religion the regulations issued against the immorality so widespread in Africa are especially worthy of remark, but like all regulations of the kind only possessed a temporary efficiency. On the other hand, the law of royal succession which we have already alluded to possessed universal validity.
The officials in the service of the Court and State as also those in the Church are all subject to the royal power; they are nominated by the monarch or at least confirmed by him, and can be deprived of their functions by peremptory royal decree. The members belonging to the household of the king represent different elements, spiritual and lay, German and Roman, free and unfree together. The highest official in the Vandal Court was the praepositus regni, whose importance lay entirely in the sphere of the government of the kingdom; his position corresponded to that of a prime minister. As holders of this office appear, so far as is known, only persons of Teutonic nationality An important post was also that of head of the Chancery of the Cabinet, who had to draw up the king's written edicts and was besides frequently entrusted with different missions of especial political importance. The existence of a special Arian court clergy is to be inferred from the fact that at the princely courts house chaplains are mentioned.
Besides these there lived permanently at the Vandal Court a supernumerary class of men who without holding any definite office enjoyed the favour of the king and were employed by him in different ways. A number of them seem to have borne the title comes as among the Franks, Ostrogoths, and others; from among them were taken, for example, the envoys sent to foreign nations. Together with the provincial officials, who might be temporarily present at the Court, and the Arian bishops, the persons of principal position in the king's circle frequently cooperated in the decision of important questions of state affairs. As a general designation for these persons when they belonged to the laity the expression domestici appears. Admittance into the royal household required an oath of fealty.
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