Note 9 — BOOK II. CONCERNING THE CONDUCT OF CAUSES.

“Decalvatio” was one of the most dreaded punishments sanctioned by the Visigothic laws. The tonsure was itself considered degrading, among a people who attached the highest importance to a luxuriant growth of hair, even when, as a distinctive mark of their calling, it was undergone by ecclesiastics; and shaving the head, in the execution of a judicial sentence, was often regarded as an indelible mark of infamy. There were several degrees of this punishment, all of which did not entail the same suffering and disgrace. In some cases, the hair was cut in the form of a cross; in others, the head was entirely shaved. He who was “turpiter decalvatus,” was scalped, and had the skin entirely stripped from his head above the ears; a practice surpassing in barbarity that peculiar to the American Indian. It was not unusual, in the infliction of this cruel penalty, to include a portion, or even all, of the skin of the forehead; thereby horribly disfiguring the victim for life.—[Ed.]