Constitutions of Melfi

The Constitutions of Melfi, or Liber Augustalis,[1] were a new legal code for the Kingdom of Sicily promulgated on 1 September 1231 by Emperor Frederick II.

The author of the Constitutions is purported to be Frederick himself, though Giacomo Amalfitano, Archbishop of Capua, appears as an influence as well.

They were meant to apply, as with previous Sicilian law, to all the peoples of the realm: Lombards, Greeks, Saracens, Germans, Jews.

Frederick II wrote in the Constitutions that "we, whom He elevated beyond hope of man to the pinnacle of the Roman Empire."

A standing Saracen army was created to prevent the king from having to call up the unreliable barons, surely angered by the Constitutions.

For example, the sale of fiefs was banned, putting an end to subinfeudation, and all vassals were subject to the king's taxes and other imposts.

Also like the great dioceses and baronies, the cities were affected by the centralising laws which removed their powers and made them more directly subject to not only the king, but his ministers as well.

Cities could not become communes, as many in Northern Italy had, and were prohibited from electing consuls or podestàs, on pain of sack and pillage.

The Constitutions notably used reason and logic to dismiss the superstitious foundations of the ordeal; for example, the use of trial by hot iron was dismissed because people believed "the natural heat of white-hot iron grows hot and, what is even more foolish, grows cold for no good reason at all", and trial by water was forbidden because of the belief "that the defendant of the crime, who has been established only by his guilty conscience, will not be received by the element of freezing water, when, in fact, it is the retention of sufficient air that prevents him from submerging."