Iustinianus'un Hukuk Reformasyonu / Justinian’s Law Reformation (original) (raw)

The period of Byzantine emperor Justinian (527-565) has been considered by most of historians as the Golden Age of Byzantine Empire. When he ascended to the Byzantine throne, he had two goals. One of them was, as a Roman emperor, to restore empire's former integrity and prosperity and the other one was, as a Christian emperor, to bring everyone together under the roof of Orthodoxy with the belief that determining dogmas and order of church dominatingly was correct. Rome had founded jurisprudence, thus founded state order and unity, while emperor established basis of absolute sovereignty. He realized that importance of this legacy, role he could still play and it was mandatory to preserve it. Having this correct vision enabled him to carry out this duty to a good result and find staff who could apply his thoughts. This was the most remarkable and famous part of the things he had put forward. His fame mostly came from his work, Corpus Juris Civilis (Law Collection of Citizens), in law field. Justinian had Corpus Juris Civilis prepared in order to reform the law and it was completed from 528 to 534. This review consists of three parts, namely: 1-Codex I-II (Statutes), 2-Digesta (Case Law), 3-Institutiones (Basic Law Knowledge); Novellae (Laws) part was included into the compilation later during the Middle Age. Codex contains ordinances which were issued during the process from Hadrianus period (117-138) to Justinian period. Digesta is the compilation of Classical Law Period's (27 BC-AD 250) works. Institutiones having legal power, carried the characteristics of law textbook for law students. While Novellae is comprised of ordinances which were issued during the period from the publication of three parts to the death of Justinian (534-565). There were two prevailing idea for the production of the compilation. The first one was to validate law of Classical Law Period and the second one was to establish a legal order to meet social and economic needs of that time. The name Corpus Juris Civilis was not given by Justinian. It was published under this title in 1583 by Romanist French scholar, Dionysius Gothofredus (1549-1622). Corpus Juris Civilis had reciprocity with the Corpus Juris Canonici, which collected law of Christian church. It was previously called Corpus Juris as well, civilis adjective was added to distinguish it from Corpus Juris Canonici. The preparation dates of Corpus Juris Civilis' parts do not comply with print formats that we have today. According to preparation dates, it was supposed to be arranged as Codex I (528), Digesta (530-533), Institutiones (533), Codex II (534) revised due to being out of date, Novellae (534-565). However, its current edition was arranged as Institutiones, Digesta, Codex, Novellae. Corpus Juris Civilis, considered as literary mosaic with its outer appearance. Ordinances and parts taken from classical laws were put into together and formed a composition. Codex is the most successful part of the work. Each ordinance is separate laws in itself, their date orders are certain. Therefore, it is not difficult to put in order in terms of their topics. Since ordinances contain closest applicable law, they are also the closest to the mind. Digesta and Institutiones, technically, are not successful