Of hunchbacks, cuckolds, clergymen and flouncy skirts
More interesting, however, are the instances of injurious behaviour taken from contemporary practice rather than from Roman law. They are a valuable source of information about the mores of the time.
Thus, it could be injurious to taunt a person with his natural impediment by calling him a cripple, or a hunchback, to refer to someone, ironically, as a "bonus patiens vir" (and thus suggesting that he was a cuckold), to state emphatically "ego saltern scortator non sum" (and thus insinuate that a particular other person is a fornicator), to use obscene language, particularly in the presence of a virgo, to address a clergyman "du Pfaff', or to use the familiar "du" when talking German to persona honorabilis.[5566] These are all cases of verbal injuries. Pulling faces, putting out one's tongue at another or kissing a woman against her will are examples of iniuriae reales.[5567] Iniuria litteris (in the form of the delict famosus libellus) covered "quamlibet scripturam infamantem, epigramma, carmen malum, satyram, picturam, historiam, comoediam".[5568] Eagerly discussed were questions of pre-eminence and precedence;[5569] for to refuse someone his rightful place at table, in a procession or at any other ceremonious occasion could constitute a grave insult within a hierarchically structured society, intensely concerned with rank, form and ritual.[5570]" A particularly interesting debate raged around the problem of insults inflicted by the clergy in the pursuit of their duties. Many a drastic invective seems to have emanated, in true Lutheran fashion, from protestant pulpits—and provides us with some inkling of the tight moral control exercised by the Church in those days. Thus, for instance, we hear of a superintendent in Saxony who was engaged in a strenuous fight against the fashion of wearing flouncy skirts?[5571]" Having referred in one of his Sunday sermons to women wearing such "vainglorious" garments as brutes and whores, he did not hesitate on subsequent occasions to identify individual ladies sitting in his congregation. Pointing his finger at them, he exclaimed that they were conceited women with the head of a devil, doomed to suffer the fires of hell, and he refused to administer the Holy Communion to them. The women concerned and their husbands thereupon sued the superintendent, and the law faculty of the University of Halle, to which the matter was referred, opined in their favour. While it was acknowledged that the clergy had a duty to admonish and impel their congregations to adopt a virtuous course of life, there were still certain limits to how far they could go in publicly upbraiding individual members. Thus they were, in a way, privileged, but not exempt from being sued for contumely iniuria.[5572] This reflects the prevailing trend in the contemporary literature:"[N]ec excipiuntur Clerici ct Ecclcsiae Ministri, si scil. non ex pictatis zelo, nee observatis gradibus admonitionis; scd privato affectu pro condone, vel alibi in certain personam injuriose invehunt, vcl eandem depingant, ut omnes intclligant, quis notetur."[5573]
4.
More on the topic Of hunchbacks, cuckolds, clergymen and flouncy skirts:
- Fidepromissio and the transition to fideiussio
- Other Types of Contractual Relationship
- SENATUS CONSULTA
- lang=EN-US>Social and Economic Conditions
- Appendix 2 Law Reports and Journals (Some Useful References
- The law of succession addresses the legal destiny of a person’s rights and duties after his death.
- Conclusion
- Why do people do acts that are agreeable or useful to other people and why do evaluators approve of such acts, and even approve of acts agreeable or useful to the actor herself?
- The Organisation of Roman Contract
- The International Community as a Political Myth
- Policies of the Roman Republic
- Intestate Succession
- I THE JURISTS
- The imperial civil service
- Partnership (societas)
- Globalization: the obsession with measurement
- Concluding Remarks