Sexualdelikte und ihre Ahndung in westgermanischen Rechtsquellen

This paper discusses rape in Anglo-Saxon, Langobardic and Middle Low German legal texts. It addresses questions of terminology, as well as cultural and legal aspects, in particular the legal consequences for offenders and victims. In some cases a consideration of legal texts of other West Germanic peoples leads to a more nuanced picture of similarities and differences in the various cultural and linguistic ambits, and indicates possibilities for further investigations. In relation to language, the paper demonstrates that the vernacular terminology of these texts makes use of specialized and common terms, the legal meaning of which only emerges from the context. The focus is here on the strategies of terminological contextualization and differentiation each Germanic language adopts in the specific case. From the point of view of the history of culture and law, it is principally notable that all these sources are familiar with forced sexual intercourse and treat it as a punishable crime. While in older texts sexual violence against women is usually considered a crime for which a monetary compensation is exacted, different according to family and status of victims, more recent texts dictate in all instances severe penalties for demonstrated rape, thus revealing a radical change of attitude towards offenders.