I am reading another book on the history of the Middle Ages, this book is more indepth, more detailed in the history of this time period. The Germanic tribes that invaded during the last days of the Roman Empire were a lose confederation of tribes, they had a simple code of laws.

1. They would tie you up, and then drop you into a river, if you floated then you were innocent, but if you sunk then you were guilty. The thinking was that water was pure, so if you were pure, innocent, then the water would reject, but if you were guitly then the water would sollow you up and you would die, justice would be served.

2. A person could kill another person as along it was done in the open. That means two warlords, or what ever could be feuding and if people were killed ( or villagers were caught up in the conflict and they died) that was "ok," but if a homicide was commited in secret, then that was wrong, in the eyes of the law. This kind of like the code of the Wild West era.

The good thing about this is that there are no lawyers.