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121S L Í M U S E T U R IN EARLY ICELANDIC LAW
public courts for dispute resolutions.21 Protection of the politically weak
from forced entry into their homes and involuntary hospitality for political
superiors was addressed as early as in Carolingian capitularies, but since
the late tenth and early eleventh century, towns and cities had increasingly
sought royal or princely protection from the forced entry and hospitality
of powerful nobles and political potentates. For example, King Berengar
II of Italy (r. 950‒66) issued privileges for Genoa in 958 which expressly
forbade neighboring counts, margraves, and other nobles from forcing
themselves into the city and exacting hospitality. Thereafter, numerous
other cites secured comparable privileges, such as Mantua and Savona in
1018 from Emperor Henry II (r. 1014‒24), Pisa in 1081 from Emperor
Henry III (r. 1084‒1106 but as king from 1056), and Cremona in 1114
from Emperor Henry V (r. 1111‒25). Various Spanish cities and towns
secured early privileges too.
The development was similar in England and France, especially from
the twelfth century onwards. King Henry I (r. 1100‒35) granted privileges
to London in 1132 that limited its customary obligations to host notable
visitors, and these restrictions were tightened even further with renewed
privileges in 1155 by King Henry II (r. 1154‒89). As the grip was tightened,
enforced hospitality eventually became a capital crime, like housebreak-
ing. The gradual criminalization of involuntary hospitality in the high
Middle Ages went in tandem with the consolidation of royal power and
public judicial authority. In the Empire in 1186, Frederick Barbarossa (r.
1155‒90) legislated against arson and various household violations and
injuries, including forced hospitality (hospitari violenter). It was only to
be punished, however, if it evidently caused damage. Such qualifications
gradually disappeared, and forced entry of any kind (domum invadere) came
to be considered a serious crime against public peace and order.22
21 Benjamin Arnold, Medieval Germany 500‒1300: A Political Interpretation (London:
Macmillan, 1997), 151‒57.
22 The examples given in this and the previous paragraph, and many more, are reviewed
in Robert von Keller, Freiheitsgarantien für Personen und Eigentum im Mittelalter: Eine
Studie zur Vorgeschichte moderner Verfassungsgrundrechte, Deutschrechtliche Beiträge, vol.
14, no. 1 (Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1933), cf. Hans Conrad Peyer, Von der Gastfreundschaft
zum Gasthaus: Studien zur Gastlichkeit im Mittelalter, Monumenta Germaniae Historica,
Schriften, vol. 31 (Hanover: Verlag Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 1987), 192‒99.