Law among Aztecs

Abstract

Aztec law should be considered to be law in the proper sense of this word. The norms of Aztec law were not separated from those of other normative systems of the Aztec society (mainly from moral and religious norms) in a large extent. It is not possible to define the territorial and the temporal spheres of action of many Aztec legal norms exactly. Among the Aztecs, the law-making was rather an incorporation of legal tradition than a creation of new legal norms. The formal sources of Aztec law were: legal custom, act legislative, concept of "reasonable man", and judicial precedent. The equality of individual persons‘ rights and duties was unknown. On the other hand, Aztecs with merits (mainly military merits), belonging to both elite (pipiltin) and ordinary people (macehualtin), had possibility to ascend within the social hierarchy and to obtain certain rights.