The Roman Law Revival
This intellectual revolution, often labeled “the renaissance of the twelfth century,” had far-reaching ramifications.[701] One component of it involved the study and teaching of Roman law, as it was embodied in the texts of the Corpus iuris civilis, compiled centuries earlier at the command of Justinian.[702] Indeed, the legal revival arguably had a more profound, extensive, and lasting impact on European life and society than any other facet of the twelfth-century intellectual renewal.
The study and teaching of Roman law recommenced in Western Europe during the second half of the eleventh century. As late as the 1060s, Justinian’s Digest remained virtually unknown in the West; then in 1076 it was cited in a judicial decision in Tuscany.[703] Within the next two decades, the Digest, along with the rest of Justinian’s Corpus, was being studied avidly by a handful of legal scholars.
Shortly before 1100, systematic teaching of Roman law began in the northern Italian city of Bologna, where the earliest medieval law faculty took shape shortly after the turn of the century. The pioneer Roman law teacher was apparently a man named Pepo, about whom, however, little else is known with certainty.[704] The earliest Bolognese teacher and commentator on Roman law of whom we know much was a certain Warner, perhaps originally a German, whose name was Italianized as Guarnerius and then Latinized as Irnerius. By the early 1090s, Irnerius was preparing a copy of the Digest for his own use; before long he possessed texts of the Code and the Novels as well.
We know virtually nothing of the circumstances under which Irnerius began teaching law, but we do know the names of at least four of his students: Bulgarus Bulgarini, Martinus Gosia, Hugo da Porta Ravennata, and Jacobus. These “Four Doctors of Bologna” succeeded Irnerius as law teachers. They also served the rich and famous of their generation as legal advisers during the early- and midtwelfth century—their best-known client was the German emperor, Frederick Barbarossa.[705] The teaching of Irnerius and his successors, as well as the appeal of the new civilian jurisprudence for powerful and ambitious rulers such as Barbarossa, stimulated a remarkable growth in the popularity of legal studies, first at Bologna and in relatively short order at other centers. During the opening decades of the twelfth century, the teaching and study of Roman law became a growth industry.
This revival did not occur in an intellectual or juristic vacuum. The demand for civilian jurisprudence was stimulated and enhanced by two closely allied currents of ecclesiastical life during the eleventh and twelfth centuries: the Church reform movement and the systematization of canon law.