Roman Jurists and the Empire: History and Interpretation (original) (raw)

Was Rome still a Centre of Legal Culture between the 6th and 8th Centuries? Chasing the Manuscripts

What happened to the tremendous legacy of juridical knowledge le behind in Italy in the 6th century? Into what labyrinth did it plunge only to re-emerge aer the silent age of the early Middle Ages into the light of day, and effectively come to shape the renewal of the jurisprudence at the beginning of the 12th century? One-and-a-half centuries aer the fanciful writings of Hermann Fitting, legal historians are still looking for the answers to these questions. Considering the new information we have (especially coming from the paleographical research), this paper re-examines the existence as well as the activities of the school of Rome both during the Justinian Age and in the two centuries thereaer. The aim of this essay is to verify whether Rome, during the very early Middle Ages, continued to represent a centre of juridical culture. According to the hypothesis developed in this contribution, Rome – at that time – not only played a very important role with regard to the material conservation of the Justinian’s libri legales, but also in the initial establishment of the new (i. e., Justinian) imperial law in the West and creation of its image as a significant juridical centre. The absence of such a centre as well as its wide-spread image would truly make the Bolognese renovatio appear ›miraculous‹ and very difficult to explain. Aer Justinian, the 7th and 8th centuries can truly be characterised as ›silent‹ in the history of Roman law in the West. However, by studying the medieval manuscript tradition, in particular, that of the Institutiones and the Novellae, we can gather together a series of elements helping us to clarify the situation. Also quite useful is an examination of the manuscript tradition of the Collatio legum Mosaicarum et Romanarum. Through the spread and use of these Late Antique works, we can see how – in conjunction with the actions of the papacy – Rome, toward the end of the 8th century, returned to being a centre of world politics and – given that law follows politics – of the legal culture.

THE OXFORD HANDBOOK OF ROMAN LAW AND SOCIETY

The Oxford Handbook of Roman Law and Society surveys the landscape of contemporary research and charts principal directions of future inquiry. More than a history of doctrine or an account of jurisprudence, the Handbook brings to bear upon Roman legal study the full range of intellectual resources of contemporary legal history, from comparison to popular constitutionalism, from international private law to law and society, thereby setting itself apart from other volumes as a unique contribution to scholarship on its subject. The Handbook brings the study of Roman law into closer alignment and dialogue with historical, sociological, and anthropological research into law in other periods. It will therefore be of value not only to ancient historians and legal historians already focused on the ancient world, but to historians of all periods interested in law and its complex and multifaceted relationship to society.

Fragmenta Londiniensia Anteiustiniana: preliminary observations in Roman Legal Tradition 8 (2012), pp. 63-83

Roman Legal Tradition, 2012

This article gives a preliminary account of seventeen small parchment fragments, which have been the subject of detailed study by members of the team of the Projet Volterra since the end of 2009. The fragments have been identified as coming from a legal text in Latin, indeed possibly all from the same page, written in a fifth-century uncial book-hand, but with some numeration and glosses in Greek. The fragments contain part of a rubricated title, as well as the headings and subscripts to several imperial rescripts of third-century emperors (Caracalla, Gordian III and the Philips are explicitly named), organized in a broadly chronological sequence without intervening commentary.

Roman Law and Latin Literature

Oxford Handbook of Roman Law and Society, edited by Clifford Ando, Paul Du Plessis, and Kaius Tuori. Oxford: 70-82, 2016

This is a position paper outlining a variety of different ways law and literature interact in Roman culture, ranging from homology, to contestation, to intimate discomfort. Both use stories to get things done, both serve as vehicles for norms, and fiction cannot be used as a criterion to disambiguate between these discursive media. Nevertheless the Romans were acutely aware of the differences between them.

Selection and Presentation of Texts in Early Medieval Canon Law Collections: Approaching the Codex Remensis (Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Phill. 1743)*

Creative Selection between Emending and Forming Medieval Memory

* The paper originallydeliveredb yS tefan Esders at the Zurich conference,beingm orei ntroductory in character,u nderwent significant changesa nd considerable extension, as the project appliedf or fundingt ogether with Eef Overgaauw(Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin) was fortunatelyg rantedb yt he Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft in 2017.F or this reason, what had been am ereo utline of further research presented at the Zurich conference in 2016,became substantiallyaugmented in the course of the project by Michael Eber and Till Stüber,both research associates within the project,and by David Ganz, whoa saMercatorf ellow joined the group in 2018. Although this article is ar esulto fajoint collaboration and of intense communication within the project,the readerw ill hardlyescape to notice that individualp arts were for al arge part written by individual authors, such as chapter 1b y David Ganz, chapter4b yT illS tüber and chapter 6b yM ichael Eber.H owever,t he resulti sm uch morethan the sum of its individual parts.-We would very much like to thank Albert Fenton for correcting and improvingt he languageo ft his article.  On the methodsand aims of late antique legal compilations,see especiallyJohn F. Matthews,Laying Down the Law: AStudyofthe Theodosian Code, New Haven2001 and some of the essays collected in Jill Harries and Ian. N. Wood (eds.), The Theodosian Code. Studies in the Imperial LawofL ate Antiquity,L ondon 1993.