About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

58 Law Libr. J. 130 (1965)
Medieval Roman Law: A Guide to the Sources and Literature

handle is hein.journals/llj58 and id is 146 raw text is: Medieval Roman Law: A Guide to the Sources and Literature* STEPmN L. SAsst In the course of its almost twenty- seven century old history, Roman law has lived two lives. It lived its first life as the legal system of ancient Rome (753 B.C.-A.D. 476). Its second life started with a phoenix-like re- birth at the end of the eleventh cen- tury and, after it had influenced to a greater or lesser degree the laws of nearly all mankind, it is still in prac- tical operation in some areas in our own times. The first life of Roman law has a recorded history of about one thou- sand years. Serving as markers, there are two compilations of law that sig- nal the start and the close of the first life-cycle of Roman law: The Law of the Twelve Tables in the middle of the fifth century, B.C., and Justinian's Corpus Juris Civilis in the first half of the sixth century, A.D. The Law of the Twelve Tables re- flects the formalistic, rigid and terse legal concepts of a small city-state in an agricultural society; Justinian's Corpus Juris Civilis is the embodi- 0 This article is an outgrowth of the author's lecture, Roman law and its influence on Western civilization, delivered at Grinnell College, Grinnell, Ia. on February 4, 1964. In its present form it is a continuation of the author's article, Research in Roman law; a guide to the sources and their English trans- lations, Law Library Journal, 56:210-233, which deals with the literary sources of ancient Roman law. t Foreign Law Librarian and Lecturer in Law, University of Iowa, College of Law. Dr. rer. pol. and Dr. iur. (Budapest), M.S. in L.S. (Western Reserve University). ment of a mature, highly technical and complex legal system of a wide- spread cosmopolitan empire. The Twelve Tables contained legal rules applicable exclusively to Roman citi- zens; Corpus Juris Civilis was a deposi- tory of legal precepts intended-and for many centuries believed-to gov- ern the universality of mankind. At the time when Corpus Juris Civilis was promulgated, the Western part of the Empire had already fallen victim to the attacks of Germanic tribes. Justinian was denied the realization of his political dream-the restoration of the unity of the Roman empire-but he succeeded in the other task he set for himself, the compila- tion and thereby the preservation of the accomplishments of Roman juris- prudence. The fulfillment of this task assured him a distinguished place in the history of mankind; and he genu- inely deserved it, for he not only pre- served the cream of Roman legal thinking of the past centuries from eventual oblivion, but also by grant- ing to the composite parts of the compilation' the force of imperial 1 Two types of legal rules were promul- gated as imperial statutes in three separate works to which a fourth one was added later: the collection of Novels. The Code and the Novels contain the imperial enactments (leges); the first mainly those of Justinian's predecessors, the second his own. The inter- pretations of jurists (ius), as expounded in the juristic literature, have been preserved in the Institutes and the Digest. Of the Justinian law books, the Digest is the most

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most