Bilingual: legal and legitimate – Ludwig as legislator

In the Middle Ages, legal texts were usually written in Latin. According to traditional reading, older codifications of imperial law, which go back to Emperor Justinian (born 482, ruled 527-565), not only remained in force until well after Emperor Ludwig IV (born 1282/86, ruled 1314-1347), but were also the subject of lively commentary in the law faculties of late medieval universities. In contrast to this venerable tradition of Latin-language imperial legislation, commentary and administration of justice, a strong advance of vernacular supra-regional legal texts can be observed in the Holy Roman Empire north of the Alps from the 13th century onwards. It was the Franciscan order in particular that was behind the influential German-language law books "Schwabenspiegel" or "Deutschenspiegel" from the 13th century onwards and also led the way locally in the formulation of many German-language town laws. It is therefore probably no coincidence that Ludwig the Bavarian, with his well-known preference for German-language documents and for the Franciscan Order, which even resided prominently at the Munich Court with its General Michael of Cesena (c. 1270-1342) as an advisor, actively pursued the combination of legislation and the vernacular. For this reason, Ludwig’s early New High German "Oberbayerisches Landrecht" (Upper Bavarian Land Law), in particular, must be placed in a tradition that goes back a good hundred years, alongside Latin legal texts that continue to be in force.

Klaus Wolf