§ 10 All the extant sources which in one way or another deal with legal situa­tions are the materials which may be utilized in the study of the Roman law.

It must at once be pointed out, even so, that there is an element of chance in the fortuitous preservation of this or that text or other source. Thus there is the danger of deducing from lack of information about a particular topic that this matter is absent from the Roman law.

This chapter is a survey of the chief source materials to which the student may turn. ‘Source materials’ noted herein are ‘sources of cognition’ (Erkenntnisquellen), that is, the various writings which present the mater­ials. We are not concerned at this point with the law case which a legal writer may have described, but rather where his discussion of the case is to be found; we are not concerned with the norm which a statute laid down, but where the text of the statute is to be located. Hence, some ‘sources of origin’ (Entstehungsquellen) will be missing from this survey, e.g., the law of the Twelve Tables, or the edict of the praetor. For the former has largely been recovered from quotations in literary writers, the latter from references in juristic writings. For the source materials discussed there will be a brief statement of their nature, the manuscript tradition and editions thereof, translations if any exist, with occasional discussion of formal elements. The role of the source in the evolution of the Roman law is reserved for later treatment.

Most of the ‘histories’ of Roman law, those books which provide the historical background for the treatises on the substance of the law, devote a

considerable number of pages to the matters considered herein. Among the more extensive discussions are the ’histories’ by Arangio-Ruiz and Bon­fante? Krüger and Kubier? There are also general surveys of the source materials by Cosentini and Guarino? Wenger’s magnum opus is a massive tome which has the discussion of ‘Erkenntnisquellen’ as its central theme.* There is a recent short article in English which may serve as a handy guide, to be used with caution? Stein includes a bibliography of surveys, texts and translations of texts in his recent compilation?