Note 41 — BOOK VII. CONCERNING THEFT AND FRAUD.
S. P. (Samuel Parsons) Scott translation
The mildness of the sentence imposed for the crime described in this chapter, which seems to include the capital offences of treason and lèse-majesté, as well as the lesser one of forgery, is most extraordinary and inexplicable. Although “the divinity that doth hedge a king” was not fully recognized or appreciated by the Visigoths of the seventh century, whose monarch was the creature of an ecclesiastical council, and not infrequently deduced his origin from any but a princely house, it is still inconceivable that these offences being particularly directed against the regal dignity, should have been regarded as personal and of trifling moment, for it can be readily conjectured what serious trouble and embarrassment a spurious edict, purporting to emanate from the throne, might cause.
The “notaries” herein referred to were secretaries, shorthand writers or amanuenses.
This law is of Roman origin, and the amputation of a finger or a hand, while not unusual under that system, was a more prominent feature of Greek penal legislation, from which the Romans, at the time of the adoption of the Law of the Twelve Tables, borrowed many of their punishments.—[Ed.]