In the Lex salica we several times find sunnis, in connection with tricare, tenere, detenere, in order to express a legitimate delay which would excuse a person's non-appearance in court. (1) If we compare these passages with the corresponding ones in the Visigothic (2) and other Germanic laws, it appears that sunnis, sonia, etc., is morphologically and semantically derived from Latin idoneum, as shall be shown further on.

In the Visigothic laws idoneus is the reliable, better situated servant, as opposed to the servus vilior, inferior, rusticanus. (3) But we also get here the combination "testis idoneus," as in the Roman laws, for the reliable witness, that is, one who is of better birth and well-to-do and, therefore, would not be inclined to perjure himself. (4) Idoneum could also be employed in regard to a reliable document or a sufficient proof. (5) If we turn to the corresponding Visigothic law about summoning to court, we at once see that the Salic sunnis is nothing but the legal proof, by means of reliable witnesses or by oath, that sickness, floods, or a snowstorm have prevented the defendant's appearance before the judge. (6) This law is identical with the one given in Digest II. 11, and the manner in which it was applied may be seen from an interesting case at the Synod of Donatists in Carthage in the year 411. A bishop was prevented by sickness from attending, so he sent a proxy to excuse his absence and sign for him, when the tribune and notary Marcellinus, who carried on the proceedings in a strictly legal fashion, pronounced his "probabilis et rationabilis excusatio est." (7)

Precisely the same conception of idoneus is found in the Lex romana raetica curiensis, where the "clericus idoneus," the well-to-do, "reliable" clerical is opposed to the "inferior," while the credible witness is known as "idonia persona," (8) even as is explicitly stated in the Burgundian laws. (9) This conception of the reliable witness has arisen from the current connotation in the sixth century of idoneus as "well-to-do, mighty," wherefore, for example, Cassiodorus constantly opposes the idoneus to the tenuis. (10)

If we now turn to the Germanic laws which are further removed from the Roman prototype, we find a large number of corruptions of the original idoneus. The Langobards made of it a verb idoneare, edoniare, aduniare "to purge oneself legally by means of reliable witnesses," (11) that is, it is identical with the above-mentioned "idoneam probationem, idoneis testibu firmare, probare." In the Lex ribuaria we get both the older "cartam idoneam confirmare" and idoneare, (12) but the latter occurs in the form etuniare and exuniare, of which the first has led to English atone, as though derived from "at one." That atone is derived from France is proved beyond any shadow of a doubt by the survival of a corruption of etunis in Bayonne in the twelfth century. The respective document fortunately has survived in two additional variants, one from Rouen, the other from Oleron. (13) Where Rouen uses idoneus or exonium, Oleron speaks of essoyne, while Bayonne uses tenis, so that there cannot be the slightest doubt as to their identity.

Rouen

   Oleron

       Bayonne
4. Nisi idoneam excusa-     Ne a dit au maior rai-       Si combien excusacion
cionem die precedenti

zonable excusacion por    no affeite conneisser lo
majori notam fecerit.

  quei il ne puchet estre.    davant die au maire.
(p. 10.)

24. nisi ipse justam ha-       se il n'a ogu dreite des-    si ed non a dreiture
buerit excusacionem.

 accusame.

 tenis.

25. nisi qui tenet cu-

  si cil qui tent la cort ne     si aquel qui tin sa cort
riam habeat exonium jus-  ha essoyne.

       no a dreiture tenis.
tum. (ibid.)

28. sine licentia majo-

sans congé dou maior       seis lezer dou maire o
ris vel sui corporis ex-        et dous esquevins.

   seins tenis de son cors.
onio. (p. 36.)

29. major debet eum pu-

   si no a arresonable tenis.
nire secundum exonium
per quod debeat rema-
nere (ibid)

The expression "idonea excusacio" at Rouen shows how idoneum came to mean "legal excuse, essoin," while the forms idoniare, adoniare, exadoniare, exsoniare, exoniare, which are found in the Alemanian (14) and Frankish (15) laws and in later documents show how sonia, sunnis was formed. Idoniare has been understood as ad-oniare, and, from analogy with "excusare," this has been changed to exadoniare and exoniare, exsoniare, producing soniare, while the ablative idoneis has given the form soniis, sonnis, sunnis. (16) This sonia was already known in the seventh century, (17) and, if certain works are correctly dated in the sixth century, it must have been popular much earlier. The expression "sonia nuntiare" of that period shows that sonia has either the legal meaning "excuse," or "that which furnishes a basis for that excuse, affliction, trouble, worry caused by delay, delay." In a sixth century Bible text it is the translation of cura "care," (18) and in the Graeco-Latin glosses (19) it is rendered by merimna, frontij, while soniari is merimnan. The same meaning is given to it in the Sortes sangallenses (20) and in the writings of the eighth century. (21) The French language has not only soin "care," but also "excuse, essoin," (22) while the Germanic languages have evolved a number of important words out of the original "testibus soniis."

Gothic sunjon "to verify, excuse, justify," sunjons "apology, defence, answer," sunja "truth," OHG. sôna, suona "judgment, reconciliation, peace," MDutch soene, swoene, Dutch zoen "atonement," soenen "to kiss," OFrisian sôna "reconcile," Norwegian sone "to atone" are identical in form and meaning with LLatin sonia. In ONorse, syn, in the compound nauðsyn, means "necessity, impediment," which connotation in OHG. has been left to the common alternative of the documents, sumnis "legal necessity, delay," from which has been formed the verb sûmen "to tarry, delay." This meaning has not entered into any other Germanic languages but Dutch zuimen, which is merely a borrowing from the German. Now, the usual formula in which sonia occurs in the Merovingian and Carolingian laws and documents is "sonia nuntiare" is recorded in Gothic in "sunja gateihan," "to tell the truth," and I shall now show that teihan is derived from "testibus."

In Gothic teihan is identical with "nuntiare" in meaning, but in the other Germanic languages the corresponding verb means "to accuse, charge with," so in AS. têon, OHG. zîhen. These verbs are distinct from Goth. taiknjan, OHG. zeihhanen, etc., which alone are related to Lat. dico, Greek deiknumi. It is merest accident that the two forms somewhat coincide, for the meanings of Goth. teihan, etc., are distinctly derived from the rubric "testibus soniis" was popularly pronounced testibusonis, tehtibusonis, and as such it has survived in the AS. tiht-bysig "infamatus et accusationibus ingravatus," a back formation from tiht-bysignis, testibusonis. This appears clearly from the first recorded case in 959, when the phrase is used for "one under heavy accusation and not to be believed by the people," (23) for precisely then the accused person would have to purge himself by three credible witnesses. Now, the long rubric testibusonis has survived in Old French in the abbreviated form busun, busuigne "legal necessity, important affair," (24) which has ultimately produced besoin, but which in the oldest AS. case, of about 950, still means "necessitas, solicitudo." (25) Thus French besoin and English business go back to testibusonis, but, while the whole has produced the AS. tihtbysig, the first part tiht, OHG. zicht, means "accusation, crime," and from this has come by a back formation Goth. teihan, and so forth.





Endnotes