ABORTI ON, POISONING, MAGlC, AND CONTRACEPTION IN ECKHARDT'S PACTUS LEGIS SALICAE by Marianne Eisakkers - Utrecht

Summary Researching fertility regulation in Merovingian involves a study of . Karl Eckhardt's editions ofthe Lex Salica have provided us with material which, if dissected properly, offers valuable information on the development and meaning of Salic law. In this paper the articles on killing pregnant women, aborti on, poison• ing, magie, and contraception will be examined. I will try to show that an analysis of the manuscript versions of the Pactus Legis Salicae - not the reconstructions Eckhardt devised - provides us with information on the views of the Salian on fertility regulation, and as an added benefit it helps us understand the scope of the word malejicium in early medievallegal texts.

Salic law is one of the most important sources of information on abor• tion and contraception in early medieval Gaul. The enormous corpus of law known as the Lex Salica is not easily accessible and editing teehniques used in the past - espeeially attempts to reeonstruet the 'Urtext' ofthese laws - have not made researehing the history of Salie law or assessing the texts whieh have eome down to us any easier. Thanks to Karl August Eekhardt's editions ofthe various manuseript reeensions, we are now able to see how Salie law was amended, sup• plemented, edited and revised. The manuseripts show us that views on fertility regulation tend to change every so often, just like they do today.l Karl August Eekhardt's life was devoted to editing Old Germanie law, especially the laws ofthe . Before the seeond world war Eekhardt published a number of editions and translations of Ger• manie law for the Germanenrechte series.2 During the war he was

1 Karl August Eckhardt (Hrsg.), Pactus Legis Salicae, Hannover 1962 (Mo nu• menta Germaniae Historica, Leges Nationum Germanicarum, 4.1) and Karl August Eckhardt (Hrsg.), Lex Salica, Hannover: Hahn, 1969 (Monumenta Germaniae Histo• rica, Leges Nationum Germanicarum, 4.2). - The Lex Salica was translated into English by Katherine Fischer Drew (transl.led.), The Laws ofthe Salian Franks, Philadelphia 1991, and Theodore lohn Rivers (transl./ed.), Laws ofthe Salian and , New York 1986. 2 Karl August Eckhardt (Hrsg.), Die Gesetze des Merowingerreiches 481-714, Weimar 1935 (Germanenrechte, Texte und Übersetzungen, I); Karl August Eck• hardt (Hrsg.), Die Gesetze des Karolingerreiches 714-911, Bd. 2, Alemannen und Bayem, Weimar 1934 (Germanenrechte, Texte und Übersetzungen, 2.2); Karl Au• gust Eckhardt (Hrsg.), Die Gesetze des Karolingerreiches 714-911, Bd. 3, Sachsen, 234 drafted and sent to , and fortunately he was able to spend all his spare time in the Bibliotheque Nationale studying manuscripts ofthe Lex Salica which were otherwise inaccessible. After aseries of set• backs he was finally able to finish his editions of the Lex Salica for the Monumenta Germaniae Historica (MGH) in 1962 and 1969.3 To• gether the two Monumenta volumes - now the standard edition - cover more than four centuries of medieval Salic law. The first volume con• tains the Pactus Legis Salicae (PLS), the Merovingian versions of the Lex Salica, and the second volume the Carolingian versions of the Lex Salica (LS). The term Lex Salica can be confusing, because it denotes the Carolingian versions, but also the whole body of medieval Salic law. The Lex Salica survives in more than 80 manuscripts. Eckhardt iden• tified six 'Hauptfassungen' , 'Textklassen' , redactions or versions (A, B, C, 0, E, K), and a V and an S version.4 The Pactus Legis Salicae survives in the A and C recensions, and the Lex Salica in the 0 and E versions. The B version ofthe Pactus is not extant; Eckhardt, how• ever, claims to have discovered traces of B recensions in some of the other versions, especially in Herold's printed version. The Karolina, or K version was compiled during 's reign and goes back to a C version, which is why Eckhardt included a K version in his

Thüringer, Chamaven und Friesen, Weimar 1934 (Germanenrechte, Texte und Übersetzungen, 2.3). 3 Cf. note 1. Photocopies ofthe Parisian manuscripts ofthe Lex Salica were lost in an air raid and when at the end of the war Eckhardt was made a prisoner of war, the Americans confiscated almost all of his books plus the manuscript of his edition of the 100-title version of the Lex Salica. His entire helped hirn with the 'Wiederherstellung' and with subsequent editions of the Lex Salica. Cf. Karl Au• gust Eckhardt (Hrsg.), Pactus Legis Salicae, Bd.l, Einführung und 80 Titel-Text, Göttingen 1954 (Germanenrechte, Neue Folge, Westgermanisches Recht, I), pp. 7- 8, and Eckhardt 1962, pp. xxxviii-xxxix. 4 Cf. Eckhardt 1962, pp. ix ff. On the Lex Salica, see also: J.M. Wallace-Hadrill, The Long-Haired Kings and Other Studies in Frankish History, London 1962; Alexander Callander Murray, Germanic Kinship Structure; Studies in Law and So• ciety in Antiquity and the , Toronto 1983; Rosamond McKit• terick, The Carolingians and the Written Word, Cambridge 1989; Ruth Schmidt• Wiegand, Stammesrecht und Volkssprache; Ausgewählte Aufsätze zu den Leges Barbarorum. Festgabe für Ruth Schmidt-Wiegand zum 1.1.1991, Hrsg. Dagmar Hüpper und Clausdieter Schott e.a., Weinheim 1991 [contains reprints ofmany of her articles on the Lex Salica]; lan Wood, The Merovingian Kingdoms 450-751, London etc. 1994; Patrick Wormald, Legal Culture in the Early Medieval West; Law as Text, Image and Experience, London etc. 1999.