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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dr. Strangemonkey" data-source="post: 1414330" data-attributes="member: 6533">In terms of general principles, one thing you should bear in mind that the legal system went through periods of intense reform, which mostly consisted of attempts to regularize various codes and claims against universal principles rather than an attempt to reorganize everything.There were several movements to use Roman and Byzantine law as a standard, Church law often proved an effective and consistent standard, and in general people were very big on keeping to contractual relationships, making certain that all property was owned, and keeping to precedent.  Roman Catholic Churchs are named after saints because in the original systems the saints were the official owners of the property.  A neat legal compromise which kept all property private without tying the church lands to any system of inheritance which might eventually preclude their use.This also meant that there were periods where legal systems would be compared against each other or compete in ways that our current systems rarely ever do.  The biggest examples of this are the controversies between secular and royal authorities over who would control religious succession, but equally I just read a very good book on the constant struggle to determine where Imperial power came from and who had it.Basically the same question of hierarchy asked above, but asked by people of the period and answered in all sorts of hideously confusing and conflicting ways.There were also manifestations of moral principles we would consider very odd.  In Germanic cultures, there was a heavy principle of corporate fining.  So that someone's cousin might commit murder and then the whole family would pay the fine so that families were encouraged to control their local hot heads.  They also did trial by various tests which were nice because they carried high risk either way so that they made a nice compromise in situations where the truth wasn't entirely clear or the punishment proportional.  Take the infamous pick the right knife scene in Hunchback of Notre Dame.  The king gives her a 50% chance to get away in a situation that appeases various powers who to free or kill the girl.Similarly, the Byzantines thought execution was un-Christian so they mutilated everyone or put them in situations where they were guaranteed to suffer but might survive somehow.</blockquote>

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