The Carta de Logu was a

legal code A code of law, also called a law code or legal code, is a systematic collection of statutes. It is a type of legislation that purports to exhaustively cover a complete system of laws or a particular area of law as it existed at the time the cod ...

of the

Judicate of Arborea The Judicate of Arborea ( sc, Judicadu de Arbaree, it, Giudicato di Arborea, ) or the Kingdom of Arborea (, , ) was one of the four independent judicates into which the island of Sardinia was divided in the Middle Ages. It occupied the central ...

, written in the

Sardinian language Sardinian or Sard ( , or ) is a Romance languages, Romance language spoken by the Sardinians on the Western Mediterranean island of Sardinia. Many Romance linguists consider it the language that is closest to Latin among all its genealogica ...

and promulgated by the ("Lady Judge")

Eleanor of Arborea Eleanor of Arborea or Eleanor De Serra Bas ( Sardinian: Elianora de Arbarée / Elianora De Serra Bas, Italian: Eleonora d'Arborea / Eleonora De Serra Bas; 1347— June 1404) was one of the most powerful and important, and one of the last, judges ...

in 1392. It was in force in

Sardinia Sardinia ( ; it, Sardegna, label=Italian, Corsican and Tabarchino ; sc, Sardigna , sdc, Sardhigna; french: Sardaigne; sdn, Saldigna; ca, Sardenya, label=Algherese and Catalan) is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after ...

until it was superseded by the Savoyard code of Charles Felix in April 1827. The Carta was a work of great importance in

Sardinian history Archaeological evidence of prehistoric human settlement on the island of Sardinia is present in the form of nuraghes and other prehistoric monuments, which dot the land. The recorded history of Sardinia begins with its contacts with the various ...

and in European Juridic history as a whole. It was an organic, coherent, and systematic work of legislation encompassing the

civil Civil may refer to: *Civic virtue, or civility *Civil action, or lawsuit * Civil affairs *Civil and political rights *Civil disobedience *Civil engineering *Civil (journalism), a platform for independent journalism *Civilian, someone not a membe ...

and

penal law Criminal law is the body of law that relates to crime. It prescribes conduct perceived as threatening, harmful, or otherwise endangering to the property, health, safety, and moral welfare of people inclusive of one's self. Most criminal law i ...

. The history of the drafting of the Carta is unknown, but the Carta itself provides an excellent glimpse into the

ethnological Ethnology (from the grc-gre, ἔθνος, meaning 'nation') is an academic field that compares and analyzes the characteristics of different peoples and the relationships between them (compare cultural, social, or sociocultural anthropology). ...

and

linguistic Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

situation of late medieval Sardinia. In the Carta there is the modernizing of certain norms and the juridical wisdom that contains elements of the Roman-canonical tradition, the Byzantine one, the Bolognese jurisprudence and the thought of the

glossator The scholars of the 11th- and 12th-century legal schools in Italy, France and Germany are identified as glossators in a specific sense. They studied Roman law based on the '' Digesta'', the ''Codex'' of Justinian, the ''Authenticum'' (an abridged ...

s of the Catalan court culture, but above all the local juridical elaboration of the Sardinian customs made by Sardinian municipal law.Raimondo Carta Raspi, ''Mariano IV of Arborea'', Il Nuraghe, Cagliari 1934. Raimondo Carta Raspi, ''History of Sardinia'', Mursia, Milan 1981. One notable provision of the Code is that it gave daughters and sons the same inheritance rights. As well, it also declared that rape could be recompensed through marriage only if the woman who was raped agreed to marry her rapist, and even if she did the Code declared that the rapist still had to either pay a large fine to the Senate or have his foot cut off (his choice). If she did not agree to marry him, he had to give her a dowry that suited her social status, so that she could marry someone else, and he still had to either pay a large fine to the Senate or have his foot cut off (his choice). As well, these punishments were not affected by whether or not the woman in question was betrothed. The Code also caused

to be remembered as one of the first lawmakers to set up the condition of reciprocity when dealing with foreigners, as well as the crime of

misfeasance Misfeasance, nonfeasance, and malfeasance are types of failure to discharge public obligations existing by common law, custom, or statute. The Carta de Logu caused Eleanor of Arborea to be remembered as one of the first lawmakers to set up the ...

Sources

Bibliography

*Birocchi, I. and Mattone A. ''La carta de logu d'Arborea nella storia del diritto medievale e moderno''. Laterza: 2004.

External links

Text at Istar, Arborean Historic Center
Legal codes History of Sardinia {{Italy-hist-stub