Concluding Remarks

Recognizing the role of law as a tool of integration, Justinian aspired to produce a comprehensive, systematic and authoritative statement of the law that would replace all former statements in both juridical literature and legislation and promote legal unity throughout his realm.

His intention to create a living system of law on classical foundations is particularly evident in the Digest: the largest and, in many respects, most important part of his codification. However, the accomplished work fell short of this objective and this is unsurprising given the magnitude of the project, its swift completion and, perhaps most importantly, the general intellectual climate of the era—an intellectual climate that was unfavourable to creative legal thinking. The Digest not only reproduced contradictions and repetitions that were often exacerbated by the mutilation or alteration of the classical texts. In many respects, it was also alien to contemporary conditions and thus difficult to apply in practice as a legal source. It is thus unsurprising that not long after the work of codification was completed and in spite of Justinian’s ban, manuscripts began to circulate containing translations, abbreviations and explanatory remarks of jurists of the day. Yet there is no doubt that Justinian did succeed in assembling and preserving for posterity the bulk of the Roman legal heritage—an immense body of legal materials spanning hundreds of years of legal development. At the same time, his imperial enactments contained a great deal of reformatory legislation that impressed almost every branch of the law.

Regardless of its limitations, Justinian’s legislation is one of the greatest monuments of legal activity the world has known—a work whose importance and influence cannot be overstated. In the Byzantine East, it prevailed as a basic document for the further evolution of law until the fall of the Empire in the fifteenth century. The legislation remained largely forgotten for five centuries in Western Europe until it was rediscovered in the eleventh century. It provided the basis first for an academic revival and then for a far-reaching reception of Roman law as the common law of Continental Europe. As a historical source, Justinian’s work also provides a comprehensive picture of the way Roman law and legal thinking evolved from the first century BC until the sixth century AD. It also reveals a great deal on the state of society and culture at the dawn of the Middle Ages.

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Source: Mousourakis G.. Fundamentals of Roman Private Law. Springer, 2012.— 366 p.. 2012

Concluding Remarks

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