Doubt in Favour of the Defendant, Guilty Beyond Reasonable Doubt LATE ANTIQUITY AND EARLY MIDDLE AGES The principle of in dubio pro reo notes an even greater development in post-classical age (IV and V century AD.), as a result of the influence of the Christian principle of “favor miserorum” (benevolence towards the poor) and humanism on the Roman law. Following the brutal persecutions which reached their peak under the reign of Diocletian, the emperors Galerius, Constantinus and Licinius in the edict of Nicomedia (311 A.D.) had already granted the Christians the freedom of worship; and just seventy years later, in 380 A.D., the emperor Theodosius declared the Christianity the official religion of the empire. During the IV century the Christian Church started to influence life, as well as the socio-political organization of the state including the law. A citation of this evolution can be found in the Breviary of Alaric  (Breviarium Alaricianum or Lex Romana Visigothorum)13. This collection includes a provision about manumission (liberation) of slaves: “Communem servum unus ex sociis vincendo futurae libertati non nocebit; inter pares enim sententia clementior severiori praefertur: prope et innocentes dicere, quos absolute nocentes pronuntiare non possunt”. The case was as follows: one of the two owners chained their common servant, while the other owner decided to free him. The excerpts emphasize the prevalence of the will of the owner who wanted to free the servant. This shows that in the Alarik’s Code, the Roman law was evidently influenced and modified by the new principles preached by the Christianity, thus revising the rule in the classical Roman law, according to which the liberation of the slave would have required consent by all of the owners. This passage of the Breviary became the grounds for two other basic principles of crucial importance in most of the modern legal systems: the principle of favor rei (favour for the accused) and the principle of presumption of innocence.14 In the year 476 the barbarian king Flavius Odoacer ended the Western Roman Empire. The western part of Europe, including Italy, was conquered by barbaric people who imposed their customs and habits, while the power of the Roman Empire was redirected towards the East, ruling under the name of Byzantine Empire for the next 1000 years. However, the Roman law in Western Europe did not eclipse with the fall of the Western Empire. The principle of personality of law was in force in the territories conquered by the barbarian population, meaning that the application of the law was governed not by the territory, but by the population Renzo Lambertini, I caratteri del Breviarum Alaricianum, Lecture held in Neaples on 29.4.2008, p. 1. Breviary of Alaric was a collection of Roman law, compiled by order of Alaric II, King of the Visigoths. This compilation included his advice to his bishops and nobles and was promulgated on 2 February 506 A. D. 14 Bissacco Cristina, Il canone In dubio pro reo: tra concezione classica e moderna della prova, Padova, 2008, p. 13 citing Brev. Pauli Sententiarum IV, 12, § 5 (which is later reported in Lex Romana Visigothorum); Polara Giovanni Lex Romana Visigothorum, CUEM, 2005 e Fabio Zunica LE REGULAE IURIS NELL’ESPERIENZA GIURIDICA ROMANA, Università Federico II, 2011, p. 101. 13 18