ROMAN LAW

12 The disappearance of the Roman state and the growing influence of the Germanic peoples were decisive for the evolution of Roman law. The old Roman legal order was not entirely eclipsed but, with the decline of the institutions of Antiquity, it lost its predominant position.

The principal changes were these: under the empire the whole population had been subject to Roman law, but now only the Romani, the descendants of the old indigenous populaВtion, were subject to it. The Germanic tribes retained their own customary law. In this period Roman law became more and more remote from its classical model, owing to the disappearance of the main components of ancient legal culture, namely the tradition of the major schools of law, the learning of the jurists, imperial legislation and case law. Besides, the West no longer remained in intellectual contact with the Greek East, which in its day had greatly contributed to the development of the classical Roman law. To these circumstances may be added the intellectual impoverishment of the western world. Roman law was reduced to being a provincial customary law, the вЂ?Roman vulgar lawвЂ™ which prevailed in Italy and the south of France. Vulgar law was used to some extent in the rudimentary compilations made, on the orders of Germanic kings, for the benefit of their Roman subjects.¹ The compilations of Justinian (d. 565) were the most important legacy of Roman law. Yet JustinianвЂ™s legislative work did not come into force in the West. And it remained unknown for the first centuries of the Middle Ages, owing to the isolation of the West and the failure of JustinianвЂ™s attempts at reconquest of the territories invaded by the Germans.

The Corpus iuris civilis of Justinian (the name goes back to the twelfth century) is one of the most celebrated legislative projects in

^, The lex Romana Visigothorum or Breviarium Alarici was a compilation of Roman law promulgated by Alaric₁ King of the Visigoths, in ad 506. For centuries after the fall of the empire it was one of the main sources of knowledge of Roman law in the West.

The important lex Romana Burgundionum should also be mentioned; its date is not earlier than the reign of King Gundobad (d. ad 516).

history. It represents the ultimate expression of ancient Roman law and the final result of ten centuries of legal evolution. At the same time the Corpus iuris was to be a message to future lawyers. Justinian had aimed to compile a substantial selection of the works of the classsical jurists and imperial legislation. The texts chosen were revised, systematically arranged, and then published and promulВgated. The Corpus iuris is made up of four collections: the most important, on account of its scale as well as its quality, is the Digest or Pandects (to use the Greek name) completed in ad 533. This contains excerpts from the works of the jurists, the principal craftsmen of Roman law. The second collection, the Codex, brings together imperial constitutions and rescripts. A first edition was completed in ad 529, a second in ad 534.^[5] The Codex is supplemented by the Novels (Novellae Constitutiones), a collection of laws promulgated by Justinian himself between ad 534 and ad 556.3 Finally, the Corpus iuris also contains the Institutes (Institutiones), intended as an introducВtion for the use of students and promulgated in ad 533. This work (not least its title) derives largely from the Institutes of Gaius, a work compiled about ad 160. In the eastern empire, JustinianвЂ™s compilaВtions remained in force: they were commented on in teaching and in scholarship. But in the West their historical role began only towards

1 IOO.*

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Source: Caenegem van R.C.. An historical introduction to private law. Cambridge University Press,1996. вЂ” 224 p.. 1996

ROMAN LAW

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