Ervig and Capital Penalties: The Way of Exile
Résumé
The legal system of the Visigothic Kingdom was significantly indebted to Roman law, and for a long time it preserved Late Roman capital penalties of death and deportation. Yet a turning point seems to mark Ervig’s reign, at the end of the 7th century: his laws put an end to the coexistence of both penalties in the Visigothic penal system, leaving exile as the only punishment incurred by political and religious offenders. Such a reform needs to be carefully weighed: was it a real break with prior penal practice? Can it be interpreted as a Christian reform of the civil law? And what about the seemingly increasing confusion between exile and servitude?
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