Offences agains royal power in early medieval German law: from civil delictum to treason

Analyzing Early Medieval legal and historical sources, the author reconstructs the main stages of the historical evolution of notions concerning the essence of crimes against royal authority from civil delictum to treason. It is shown that the following four components form the basis of the idea of treason: a breach of kings peace, a breach of fidelity to the king as to a lord, crimen laesae maistatis, and a breach of religious commandments. This set of components corrects and broadens the existent scholarly interpretations of the Early Medieval concept of treason.