Observations on the Dead Emperor Collected from Annals and Laws

he should weigh that death does not always resolve everything. Let him remember those things which, to pass over others, Gutherius Jacques Goutière, a French jurist has handed down to us regarding the law of the departed, and Zieglerus Kaspar Ziegler regarding what is just concerning the dead. See also Grotius Hugo Grotius in On the Law of War and Peace, Book II, ch. 19, where he judges that the right of burial arises from the voluntary law of nations. Thomasius Christian Thomasius does not acknowledge this in Divine Jurisprudence, Book III, ch. 10, and denies that anything is owed to the dead themselves by the law of nature, but he cannot deny that among the living, certain duties are valid in consideration of the dead. Furthermore, the plan of my undertaking will not allow me to set forth whatever law and custom demand when an Emperor departs from life, especially since that subject is perhaps treated more accurately in the dissertation of Carocius likely a reference to an academic predecessor (which I have not been able to see) On those things which, upon the death of a Caesar, belong to law or public custom. Nor is it my intent to look at the Roman Emperors of all ages with long study, but rather those, in particular, to whom Germany also yielded. Everywhere, however, I shall endeavor to distinguish the times correctly, and, since a living Caesar excels among other kings and princes by certain primary rights, I shall demonstrate in various ways that certain prerogatives must also be claimed for the dead.

The death of the Emperor must be sufficiently verified.

Before these rights can be considered, however, it must be established most certainly among all that the Emperor has breathed his last. The Romans performed the conclamatio a ritual calling out to the deceased and kept bodies at home for several days, nor is a burial conducted too hastily approved by our laws, nor by those of Emperor Zeno. For example, compare Carpzov Benedikt Carpzov the Younger, Consistorial Jurisprudence, Book II, d. 394, n. 7 sq. A remarkable document of this matter and of great trust is provided by Bodo a chronicler on the construction of the monastery of Gandersheim, in Meibom Heinrich Meibom, Writers of German Affairs, Vol. II, p. 489: The death of Duke Otto of Saxony, he says, so struck the most select congregation of virgins that besides him they also doubted that they themselves could live.