Education, History
Codification of Justinian as a source of Roman law: meaning, date
The Eastern Roman Empire for a long time was the last stronghold of the Roman classical legislation, preserved its traditions and basic provisions. The rule of Justinian showed weakness and some moral obsolescence of the canonical legal norms used in those days. Therefore, codifications (amendments) were developed that returned the legal and factual position to the basic postulates of Roman law .
Goals and content
The main purpose of the creation was the development of a single collection of law, a set of norms and legal concepts, in which both ancient law, jus vetus, and modern imperial legislation would be united. Such a code of laws should have been a weighty argument in making legal decisions and in the administration of justice. And if the matter concerned the recent laws and orders of the emperor, it was much easier to work - all the recent constitutions were regularly published. But the various legal norms specified in them were often either abolished, or indicated as obsolete. Therefore, the prerequisites for the codification of Justinian were evident, and the revision of existing legal collections became extremely necessary. Moreover, it was necessary to do this in such a way that all subsequent changes were adopted in all corners of the empire, which means that only the best legal minds of that time should be engaged in legislative drafting.
It was much more difficult to use the original sources of classical Roman law, many of which were already hopelessly lost at that time, so contacting them was a hopeless occupation. On the other hand, even those essays on which the administration of justice was built were full of contradictions and logical errors. Therefore, the opinions of various lawyers in each controversial case were strikingly different from each other. The general decision was determined only by the total number of votes that adhere to one or another verdict. To put it briefly, Justinian's empire was not fully supplied with clear and precise legal rules, and there was an urgent need to deal with this cemetery of obsolete and modern decrees, legal norms and laws, to bring the legal system into strict conformity with the spirit of Roman law.
Chronology
February 528 saw Justinian develop new provisions, including the foundations of ancient Roman jurisprudence. The codification of Justinian was compiled by a commission of ten people, in which Tribonian himself took part. In April of the same year, the code of Justinian came out , which included all the decrees and constitutions of previous emperors that were issued at the time. The complete collection of decrees and constitutions of the previous rulers of the Eastern Roman Empire numbering more than three thousand was completely redesigned and standardized. At the end of 530 there was another commission of leading lawyers, headed by Tribonian. This time it included professors of the Academy of Kronstantinople Teofil Kratin, Dorofei and Agatholiy of Berit and several other leading lawyers. The task of the commission was to develop a set of legal norms, which became the main modern legal science.
Parts of the codification of Justinian
Codifications are divided into several main parts, each of which highlights individual vector of legal proposals and questions. At the end of 530 came the so-called digest - collections of brief extracts from the works of classical Roman jurists. Simultaneously with the digest, textbooks on the study of jurisprudence for young lawyers-institutions were developed. After this, a code of Imperial Constitutions was created and edited. The Emperor directly participated in the compilation of these documents and made his proposals and amendments, later combined under the name "Codification of Justinian".
The table of codification parts is presented below:
First and second edition of the codification
The first edition of the code of laws was already known as the "codification of Justinian." Briefly its contents boiled down to three parts: digestes, institutions and code. Unfortunately, in the initial version this document has not survived to the present day. Attention to the descendants was presented a more extensive list of codifications - the so-called second edition. This code of laws was drawn up after Justinian's death, on the basis of the work of his commission and taking into account its amendments. The second edition became known under the name "Codex repetitae praelactionis". Along with the classical three parts, it included the so-called novels, which were a collection of imperial constitutions that had already been published after the publication of the first collection, The Codification of Justinian. The significance of this work can be briefly explained by the influence of this work on the subsequent development of European legal thought. Many legal norms formed the basis of medieval civil law. Therefore, it will be useful to consider the components of this document in more detail.
Imperial Constitutions
First of all, Justinian I paid attention to various meetings of imperial constitutions. Its primary task was to put in order all the existing legal norms that accumulated over the centuries after the publication of a well-known legal rarity. The Commission of Jurists met for about a year, the result of their work was Summa reipublicae, which annulled the actions of all previous acts and constitutions and informed new rules for making judgments and legal disputes. This was the first attempt to understand the legal legacy of the past, and it brought quite satisfactory results. The Emperor was satisfied with the work, and the decree on the adoption of new legal norms was issued on April 7, 529.
Digest
The Emperor Justinian was able to collect and systematize all the currently applicable legal norms - leges. Now it was necessary to do the same with respect to the classical norms of Roman law - the so-called jus vetus. The new task was more than the previous one, and work with them was incomparably more complicated. But the professional work with the already released Code and the active work of the assistants strengthened the decision of Justinian to continue the work begun. On December 15, 630, the decree of Deo auctore was published, in which Tribonianus was intended to fulfill this difficult task by choosing assistants. Triboniate invited all the most prominent jurists of the time to take part in the work of the commission, among which there were four professors of the Constantinople Academy and eleven lawyers. About what the codification of Justinian was, you can judge by the tasks assigned to the commission:
- Collect and review the works of all available at that time leading lawyers.
- All these works had to be subjected to reviews and make them extractions.
- Remove obsolete or inoperative norms and regulations.
- Eliminate disagreements and logical contradictions.
- Systematize the dry residue and state it in a clear and concise form.
The meaning of this part of the codification of Justinian was to create a systematic whole from the huge number of documents submitted. And this tremendous work has been done for only three years. Already in 533 the rule of Justinian issued a decree approving a new set of laws, which was named Digesta, and on December 30 it began to operate throughout the Eastern Roman Empire.
Internal maintenance digest
Digests were intended for practicing lawyers and were collections of existing norms and principles of jurisprudence. Their other name is pandekty. The term comes from the Greek word pandektes, which meant a comprehensive, universal - so was stressed the universal principle of the application of this code of laws. In the codification of Justinian, digests were considered both as collections of law in force, and as textbooks on applied jurisprudence. Altogether 39 outstanding lawyers of the time were quoted in digests and, according to the calculations of the emperor himself, more than two thousand works were examined. The pandects represented the sum of all classical legal literature and were the central part of the entire code of laws that Justinian I approved. All citations are divided into semantic contents into fifty books, forty-seven of which are endowed with their own titles with the names revealing one or another side of the legal problem. Only three books are deprived of titles. In the modern classification they stand at 30, 31, 32 place. All of them are united by a common problem, and all of them are devoted to testamentary refusals.
Within each title there is a list of quotes devoted to one or another side of the legal question. These quotes also have their structure. In most cases, the first to go are quotes from legal provisions commenting on the norms of civil law, then - excerpts from the works of ed edictum, on the ethical side of the problem, and in conclusion are the excerpts from the works that show examples of the application of the rule of law in legal practice. At the head of the extracts of the third group were the responsa Papiniani, so these sections are called the mass of Papillana. Sometimes this or that title completes additional statements - they are also called the Appendix.
Any of the above extracts and quotations contains precise indications of the author cited and his writings. In the editions of modern jurisprudence, all citations are numbered, the longest of them are divided into small parts - paragraphs. Therefore, when referring to pandects, it is necessary to specify not the book from which the phrase is taken, but the title, the number of the citation and its paragraph.
Interpolations
Creating the central part of the codification, lawyers were not only to collect the statements of the ancient lawyers, but also to present them in an accessible order of understanding. At the same time in the writings of the ancients there were many places that by the time of Justinian's rule were hopelessly outdated. But this should not have affected the quality and clarity of the texts. To correct flaws, compilers often resorted to small changes in quoted extracts. Such changes were later called interpolations. No external signs of interpolations are noted, they all go as normal references from Roman primary sources. But a comprehensive digest study using linguistic methods makes it possible to detect interpolations in large numbers. The compilers skilfully passed through the entire legal heritage and brought it into a convenient view. Sometimes such discrepancies are easily discernible when comparing quotes taken from the same work of a Roman lawyer, but in the sense of their predicates placed in various books. Also, cases of comparing the quote from the codifications of Justinian with the surviving original sources are known. But in the vast majority of cases, the processing and distortion of compilers can be detected only through complex historical and linguistic investigations.
Institutions
Simultaneously with the titanic work on the composition digest was working on the creation of a short manual for novice lawyers. In the preparation of the new leadership, Professor Teofil and Dorotheus directly participated. The manual was compiled in the form of a course in civil law. For its designation, a name that was quite natural for those times was adopted. In November 533, Emperor Justinian issued a decree cupidae legum Juventati, intended for students and students. In it, the legal norms set forth in the institutions were officially sanctioned, and the manual itself was equalized with other codifications of Justinian.
Internal structure of Institutions
The most ancient institutions were the manuals written by the Roman lawyer Guy, who conducted his legal activities in the 2nd century AD. E. This manual was intended for beginning lawyers and was used as a textbook on elementary jurisprudence. The Institutions of Justinian have taken from this manual the principle of structuring. Just like Guy, the entire textbook is divided into four large parts. Many chapters are directly rewritten from Guy's manual, even the principle of division into paragraphs is taken from this ancient lawyer. Each of the four books has its own title, each of the titles is divided into paragraphs. After the title and before the first paragraph there must be a brief article called principium. Perhaps members of the commission of Justinian did not want to reinvent the wheel and stopped on the version that was most convenient for study.
Necessity of changes
While there was intense work on the drafting of new legal norms and concepts, the Byzantine legislation issued a lot of new rules and interpretations, which also needed to be reviewed. Some of these controversies were signed directly by Justinian and announced in the form of decrees - the number of disputed decrees reached fifty. Many of the decisions put forward required a new assessment and revision, so after the final release of Digest and Institutions, some of the norms set forth in them already required revision. The Code, published in 529 years, contained illegal or outdated provisions, and therefore did not meet the requirements. The commission was forced to consider the controversial provisions, rework them anew and reconcile with the norms and regulations already issued. This work was carried out, and in 534 the second edition of the Code came out, which became known as Codex repetitae praelectionis.
Novels
On this the Code of laws of the Eastern Roman Empire was completed. The decrees issued earlier, correcting the existing norms, concerned the specifics of the application of a decree in practice. In the existing legal tradition they are united under the general title Novellae leges novels. Some of the novels have not only recommendations for the application of existing norms of law, but also very broad interpretations of certain areas of jurisprudence. Emperor Justinian intended to collect novels and publish them as an addition to the existing codifications. But, unfortunately, he did not succeed in this. So far, several private collections have come up. And each of these novels should be interpreted as an addition to this or that part of the codification.
Structure and purpose of short stories
All the novels included the constitutions issued by Justinian during his reign. They contained norms abolishing the early rulings of the emperor. In most cases, they are written in Greek, except for those provinces in which the Latin language was used as the state language. There are short stories published in both languages simultaneously.
Each of the novels consists of three parts, which lists the reasons leading to the publication of a new constitution, the content of the changes and the order of their entry into force. In Justinian's novellas the first part is called Proaemium, and the subsequent parts are divided into chapters. The final part is called Epilogus. The list of issues raised in the novels is very diverse: questions of the application of civil law alternate with administrative, church or judicial. Particularly interesting for the study of novels 127 and 118, which relate to the right of inheritance in the absence of a will. By the way, they formed the basis of the legislation of the German kingdoms. Of interest are also novels on family and public law, and the peculiarities of the application of certain legal norms.
Justinian's novels in our time
To modern scientists, Justinian's stories reached the collections of their private collections of second-hand booksellers. One of these collections was published in 556 and contains 124 novels, arranged in chronological order. The oldest novel is dated to the year 535, and the later of the whole collection dates back to the year 555. This collection is called Juliani epitome Novellarum. Previously, another collection containing 134 novels was known, but at present it is not available for wide study. Emperor Tiberius, 11 who became Justinian's successor, published a complete collection of short stories collected during the period from 578 to 582. It contains 168 novels, including both the already known novels of Justinian, and new ones. This collection reached the modern scholars in the Venetian manuscript, dated to the end of the 12th century. Part of it repeats itself in the manuscript of the Florentine chronicler, who copied the novels two centuries later. In addition, a number of Justinian novels are known from private collections dedicated to church law.
Corpus Rights
All parts of the new Code, according to the idea of Justinian, were to be one whole, although a common name for them was not invented. The meaning of the codification of Justinian was revealed only in the Middle Ages, when interest in the Roman legal heritage increased. Then the study of Roman law became an obligatory discipline for future lawyers, and a common name for the entire Justinian vault was invented. It became known as Corpus Juris Civilis. Under this name, Justinian's codifications are known in our time.
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