>From: "TERRA INCOGNITA" <inarsus-ferilt-z_at_mrg.biglobe.ne.jp>
>But I have always puzzled the way for explaining about Orlanthi's legal
>procedure and their habit to weregeld and outlawry, etc to fellow
>Japanese....for we have completely different set of tradition unlike of you
>europeans. (Even in modern Japan, lawsuits are uncommon for ordinary people,
>they takes long time and costs seriously, and result of them generally
>aren't written for civil affairs. IMHO, Carmanian Law is far more
>understandable for Japanese.....)
Orlanthi law is not that easy for the average european to understand either because the celtic and viking legal systems have largely disappeared although parts have been included many country's laws.
Probably the first thing that needs explaining is that there is no state, no government or any other body which exists apart from the people [1]. Kings and chiefs are just individuals with certain powers and responsibilities. In consequence there is no conception of crime as we understand it - where the state punishes an individual for breaking a law and the person who suffered, if anyone, is ignored. Laws are therefore concerned almost exclusively with defining the duties people had to each other and how to compensate the victim when a duty was breached. In modern european terms this is civil (or commercial) law rather than criminal law.
[1] This is additionally complicated by the fact that under Celtic (Brehon) law the primary legal person was not the individual but the family - a group that was defined at elaborate length.
>And Orlanthi Heortlings is those two different groups into one. IMHO.
>And in RW Iceland, I know the Collapse of Republic was at the Assassination
>of Snorri, isn't it a proof of the history such system doesn't work long
>well.....? (Of course, it is Fantasy.....but....)
I don't think you can claim that the collapse of one of the last governments to use Viking law as an indication that the legal system was unworkable. This is the legal system which was in use across most of Europe for centuries before the Roman conquest and remained in use in places like Iceland and Ireland until at least the 10th Century. As a legal system it died out because of the rise of empires (like Rome) and nation states which chose to use Roman law as the basis of their legal systems.
For a people like the Orlanthi without a centralised state or government it makes far more sense than modern criminal law. I would expect this difference to be a major source of friction between the Lunar empire and the Orlanthi.
-- Donald Oddy http://www.grove.demon.co.uk/ --__--__-- End of Glorantha Digest
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