Introduction
The evolution of Roman law largely took place within the institutional framework of the formulary procedure and the edictal system. The responses by the legal system to economic events were channelled through the structural coupling of law and economy by means of contract.
Transactional ‘legal variants' provided inputs to the legal system and had the potential of triggering legal change when they became the subject of litigation (section 2.2). The formulary procedure was much more sensitive to legal innovations than its predecessor, the legisactio procedure (section 2.3). By interpreting existing conditions of the conditional programmes encapsulated in the forms of action (formulae), or by incidentally changing or adding conditions, Roman law could respond to new transactional practices. For a substantial part of the classical period, the praetor's edict provided an effective mechanism of stabilizing legal innovations. As early as in the course of the Republic this resulted in the emergence of a second body of law alongside the ius civile: the ius honorarium (section 2.4). After the codification of the praetor's edict (Edictum perpetuum) under emperor Hadrian, the imperial chancery became the most important institutional agency for legal change, which resulted in a third body of law: ius novum. In particular, the Severan chancery sometimes curbed the spontaneous evolution of the law through contractual practices by placing limitations on party autonomy in order to protect debtors.The intellectual framework for all these mechanisms of legal evolution was formed by Roman jurisprudence (section 2.5). The Roman jurists would be materially res ponsible for the content of the praetor's edict. They would introduce contractual innovations and in litigation they would advise the litigating parties, the praetor, and the iudex. The lines of evolution of Roman law are largely drawn by an iterative relationship between transactional lawyers (and later also practitioners without much legal training) drafting legal transactions and the jurists deploying their analytical skills and practical
Security and Credit in Roman Law: The historical evolution of pignus and hypotheca. Hendrik L. E. Verhagen,
Oxford University Press. © Hendrik L. E. Verhagen 2022. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199695836.003.0003 insights in order to accommodate new transactional practices into the Roman legal system.[154]
2.2
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