The Farmer's Law
The origin of the little code for the government of Byzantine agriculturists, which is known in the manuscripts as the Farmer's Law (νόμος γϵωργικός), has occasioned some difference of opinion among the learned men who have dealt with it. The greatest authority on Byzantine law, Zachariä von Lingenthal, changed his mind on the subject. He began by thinking it the work of a private hand—the compiler of the Appendix Eclogae—and assigning it to the eighth or ninth century (Historiae Juris Graeco-Romami Delineatio, p. 32). It was put together, in his opinion, partly from the legislation of Justinian and partly from local custom. According to his last view (Geschichte des Griechisch-römischen Rechts, 3rd ed. pp. 249 sqq.) it is a product of the legislative activity of the emperors Leo and Constantine and was enacted about the year 740 A.D.