The end of classical jurisprudence
After the middle of the third century, classical jurisprudence declined. Classical legal works ceased being produced and were replaced by works in the nature of compendia or epitomes.
Some pseudo-epigraphic works were published by unknown authors under the names of late classical jurists (e.g., Pauli Sententiae). Only in the rescripts of Diocletian (r. 284-305), written in the imperial chancellery, can vestiges of classical jurisprudence still be seen. Legal officers in the imperial administration took the place of the intellectual elite of independent jurists, and legal activities moved into the hands of a growing imperial bureaucracy.The quaestor of the sacred palace, an office created by Emperor Constantine (r. 306-37), became the chief legal advisor of the emperor, a sort of minister of justice and legislation. This officer exercised great influence in the development of imperial law by preparing drafts of legal provisions; in many areas, however, he had neither legal expertise nor juridical sense. Legal style came to be decorated with pompous imperial rhetoric and lost its original brevity and terseness, while its content tended toward the simplistic. Laws of general application (leges generales) that stabilized and petrified the natural development of the legal science replaced private rescripts for specific cases. The only valid law was statutory law. Legislation replaced jurisprudence. Jurisprudence probably no longer achieved again the classical standards of excellence.
Hellenization and Christianization influenced the development of the law during this period. Greek influences were present in legal terminology, which borrowed Greek terms, as well as in the theory of sources of law (based on the tension between equity and law), in the distinction between written and unwritten law, in the promotion of the idea of natural law and humanitas, and in new abstract legal categorizations and definitions.
The Christianization of the Empire led to systematic moderation in the severity of the law; the legal system was also illuminated by moral values and principles such as love (caritas), benevolence (benignitas), and mercy (clementia), especially in relation to women and slaves; and the church gained legal status. On the other hand, emperors, in their eagerness to defend the church and orthodox doctrine, enacted constitutions and special laws against pagans, heretics, Jews, and schismatics, and sexual wrongdoings were punished with severe penalties. Caesaropapism became the dominant political doctrine, which justified imperial control over ecclesiastical hierarchy.Further reading
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Bauman, Richard A. Lawyers in Roman Republic Politics: A Study of the Roman Jurists in Their Political Setting, 316--82 BC. Munich: Beck, 1983.
Bauman, Richard A. Lawyers in Roman Transitional Politics: A Study of the Roman Jurists in the Political Setting in the Late Republic and Triumvirate. Munich: Beck, 1985.
Berger, Adolf. Encyclopedic Dictionary of Roman Law. Philadelphia, PA: The American Philosophical Society, 1953; reprint 1980.
Domingo, Rafael, ed. Juristas universales I. Juristas antiguos. Madrid: Marcial Pons, 2004.
Frier, Bruce W The Rise of Roman Jurists: Studies in Cicero's Pro Caecina. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985.
Harries, Jill. Cicero and the Jurists: From Citizen's Law to the Lawful State. London: Duckworth, 2006.
Honore, Tony. Emperors and Lawyers. 2nd ed. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
Honore, Tony. Gaius. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962.
Honore, Tony. Ulpian. Pioneer of Human Rights. 2nd ed. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Honore, Tony. Entries on “Papinian,” “Paul,” and “Ulpian.” In The Oxford International Encyclopedia of Legal History, edited by Stanley N.
Katz. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.Honore, Tony. Entries on “Aemilius Papinianus”; “Antistius Labeo”; “Aquilius Gallus”; “Cerviodius Scaevola”; “Domitius Ulpianus”; “Gaius”; “Herennius Modestinus”; “lulius Paulus”; “luventius Celsus”; “Julianus”; “Masurius Sabinus”; “Mucius Scaevola, Quintus” (in collaboration with Ernst Badian); “Proculus, Sempronius”; “Roman Lawyers”; “Sextus Pomponius.” In The Oxford Classical Dictionary, edited by Simon Hornblower, Antony Spawforth, and Esther Eidinow. 4th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.
Lenel, Otto. Palingenesia Iuris Civilis. 2 vols. Leipzig: Tautniz, 1889; 2nd ed. Aalen: Scientia Verlag, 2000.
Liebs, Detlef. Die Jurisprudenz im spätantiken Italien (260-640 n. Chr.). Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1987.
Liebs, Detlef. Romische Jurisprudenz in Africa: mit Studien zu den pseudopaulinischen Sentenzen. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1993.
Liebs, Detlef. Hofjuristen der romischen Kaiser bis Justinian. Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften and Beck Verlag. 2010.
Kunkel, Wolfgang. Die romischen Juristen. Herkunft und soziale Stellung. 2nd ed. Reprint Cologne: Bohlau Verlag, 2001.
Norr, Dieter. Rechtskritik in der romischen Antike. Munich: Beck, 1974.
Padovani, Andrea, and Peter G. Stein, eds. The Jurists' Philosophy of Law from Rome to the Seventeenth Century. Dordrecht, Berlin, Heidelberg, and Vienna: Springer, 2007.
Schiavone, Aldo. The Invention of the Law in the West. Translated by Jeremy Carden and Anthony Shugaar. Cambridge, MA, and London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2012.
Schiller, Arthur. Roman Law. Mechanisms of Development. The Hague, Paris, and New York: Mounton Publishers, 1978.
Schulz, Fritz. A History of Roman Legal Science. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1946.
Stein, Peter G. “Labeo, Marcus Antistius.” In The Oxford International Encyclopedia of Legal History, edited by Stanley N. Katz. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Stein, Peter G. “The Two Schools of Jurists in the Early Roman Principate.” Cambridge Law Journal 31 (1972): 8-31.
Tuori, Kaius. The Emperor of Law. The Emergence of Roman Imperial Adjudication. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.
Watson, Alan. Law Making in the Later Roman Republic. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974.
Wieacker, Franz. Romische Rechtsgeschichte. I. Einleitung, Quellenkunde, Frühzeit und Republik. Munich: Beck Verlag, 1988.
Wieacker, Franz. Romische Rechtsgeschichte. II Die Jurisprudenz vom frühen Prinzipat bis zum Ausgang der Antike im westromischen Reich und die ostromische Rechtswissenschaft bis zur justinianischen Gesetzgebung. Munich: Beck Verlag, 2006.
Wolff, Hans Julius. Roman Law: An Historical Introduction. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1951.
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