The Code

1.6.3.1 The First Code

The legislation project started in ad 528, when Justinian entrusted a specifically appointed committee with the task of consolidating all the valid imperial constitutions into a single code.

The committee consisted of seven senior state officials that embraced Tribonianus, who was then magister officiorum; two distinguished advocates; and Theophilus, a professor at the law school of Constantinople. The committee members were instructed to prepare a collection of constitutions by drawing on the Gregorian, Hermogenian and Theodosian Codes, and on the constitutions issued between ad 438 and ad 529. They were empowered to delete outdated or superfluous elements from the texts, remove contradictions and repetitions, and effect any necessary amendments to update the material. The constitutions were to be divided according to the subject matter and listed in chronological order under appropriate titles. On 7 April 529 the new collection was published under the name Codex Iustinianus and from 16 April of that year it acquired the force of law. The older codes and all other imperial enactments that had not been included in this new code went out of force. However, this first code had a short life as the mass of legislation issued by Justinian after 529 soon rendered it obsolete. The only surviving material from the first Code, also known as Codex vetus (the old Code), is an index found on a fragment of papyrus in Egypt in the early nineteenth century.^{^[100]}

1.6.3.2 The Second Code

At the beginning of 534 Justinian gave orders to Tribonianus, Dorotheus and three advocates to prepare a new edition of the Code.

The revised Code was to incorporate under appropriate titles the constitutions issued subsequent to the first Code, including the so-called ‘Fifty Decisions’ (quinquaginta decisiones) that was a series of ordinances whereby Justinian settled certain controversial questions arising from the works of the classical jurists (a collection of these ordinances was published on 17 November 530). Again, the commissioners were given wide discretionary powers: they could remove or omit all obsolete matter and supplement those texts that revealed gaps. The new Code was published on 16 November 534 under the name Codex repetitae praelectionis and came into force on 29 December 534. It was declared the sole authority with respect to all imperial legislation that had been issued up to the date of its publication. The Code is divided into 12 books; the first book addresses jurisdictional and ecclesiastical matters; books 2-8 are devoted to private law; book 9 pertains to criminal law; and books 10-12 deal with administrative law issues. Each of the books is sub-divided into titles. The titles, in turn, contain the relevant constitutions in chronological order. The headings of the constitutions list the names of the emperors who issued them and the persons to whom they were addressed. The oldest of the approximately 4,500 constitutions dates from the time of Hadrian (early second century ad); the majority (approximately 1,200 constitutions) originate from the reign of Diocletian (late third/early fourth century ad) while about 400 of Justinian’s constitutions are included.^{^[101]}

Despite Justinian’s prohibition, manuscripts began to circulate shortly after the Code came into force that embodied the commentaries and abbreviations of contemporary jurists. One of these manuscripts has been preserved in a fragmentary form through a palimpsest dating from the sixth or seventh century. Between the sixth and ninth centuries, the last three books of the Code were published separately; the constitutions in Greek were removed; and the text was considerably abbreviated. From the ninth century, these abbreviated versions were extended by the addition of materials from complete manuscripts that were apparently still extant. In the sixteenth century, under the influence of the humanist movement, the Greek constitutions were re-incorporated in the text.^{^[102]}

1.6.4

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

The Code

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