The Dawn of Roman Law

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Paul J du Plessis ◽  
Sinclair W
Keyword(s):  
Legal Order ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Roman Law

When the compilers of Justinian’s Digest in the sixth century CE reflected on the origins of Roman law as a legal order, they decided that the topic was of such importance that it had to be placed at the very front of the Digest, in book 1 title 2, directly after the introductory title in which central concepts such as ‘justice’ and ‘law’ were explained....

Transformation of legal language – Early Byzantine legal discourse

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaakko Husa
Keyword(s):  
Legal Discourse ◽  
Legal Culture ◽  
Linguistic Analysis ◽  
Cultural Transformation ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Legal Language ◽  
Linguistic Change ◽  
Early Byzantine

AbstractThis article examines the complicated legal-cultural process in which Roman law became Byzantine law and Roman legal discourse altered into Byzantine legal discourse. Roman law’s transformation into Early Byzantine law is analysed from the point of view of legal language which mutated from Latin to Greek. The approach is legal cultural and legal linguistic and focuses on the overall shape and general patterns. The goal is to highlight how legal-cultural transformation was incremental, language-bound and that there was no radical or sudden culmination point. Moreover, the analysis answers generally to the question of why sixth-century Byzantine legislative Greek contained frequent Latin loans, expressions, phrases and distortions. The discussion concentrates on the Novellae as an integral part of the process of legal cultural and linguistic change from Roman to Byzantine. Instead of going into detailed linguistic analysis, this article underlines generally the contextuality of law and the importance of legal culture

1. Introduction: Rome—A Historical Sketch

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Paul J. du Plessis
Keyword(s):  
Eighth Century ◽  
Archaic Period ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Classical Period ◽  
Private Law ◽  
Roman Society ◽  
History Of ◽  
Historical Sketch

This chapter provides a historical sketch of Rome. It has been written to provide a contextual basis for the study of Roman private law. The history of Rome is traditionally divided into three main periods based on the dominant constitutional structure in Roman society during these three periods. These are the Monarchy (eighth century bc–510 bc), Republic (509–27 bc), and Empire (27 bc–ad 565). Scholars of Roman law tend to refine this division even further. Thus, to the scholar of Roman law, the period from the founding of Rome in the eighth century bc–c. 250 bc is regarded as the ‘archaic’ period of Roman law. The period thereafter, from c. 250 bc–27 bc, is generally described as the ‘pre-classical period’ of Roman law.For scholars of Roman law, the ‘classical’ period, c. first three centuries AD, and the Justinianic period, c. sixth century AD, are the most important, owing to the compilation of ‘classical’ Roman law by order the Byzantine Emperor, Justinian, in the sixth century.

Roman Law as Part of Ancient Civilization: Reflections on Leopold Wenger's Last Work

Traditio ◽  
1955 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 381-394
Author(s):  
Hans Julius Wolff
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Legal History ◽  
Mediterranean Area ◽  
Legal Order ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Private Institutions ◽  
Historical Process ◽  
Ancient Civilization ◽  
History Of ◽  
The University

The monumental volume with which we are dealing is the legacy left to his science by a man who will always be counted among the most distinguished and most influential scholars of Roman law and ancient legal history in the first half of the twentieth century. As early as 1902, when he first began to teach Roman law at the University of Graz, Leopold Wenger had conceived a plan of writing a history of the whole legal order of the Romans that would comprise the total of public, procedural, and private institutions in one great unit. He proposed to see his unit in the light of its general political and cultural setting and to interpret it as bringing to its climax and final achievement, under Justinian, the evolution of law and legal thought of all antiquity; antiquity itself he understood as one single historical process interrelating the multitude of peoples and civilizations of the Mediterranean area that grew and declined, succeeded and influenced each other, until they were absorbed into the Roman Empire and were thus enabled to transmit their common heritage to later centuries. Understandably enough, this gigantic project involved more than one scholar could accomplish in one lifetime. Wenger was not able to carry it out. He did, however, succeed in completing, in this detailed description and discussion of the sources, the first instalment, and happily lived to see its publication shortly before his death on September 21, 1953, at the age of seventy-nine.

A Collection of Roman Legal Maxims on Papyrus

1941 ◽  
Vol 31 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 63-69
Author(s):  
Fritz Schulz
Keyword(s):  
Fifth Century ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Considerable Importance ◽  
Editio Princeps

More than ten years ago—in vol. iii of the Studi in onore di Pietro Bonfante (Milan, 1930)—Angelo Segrè published four pages of a papyrus-codex of the fifth or sixth century A.D. which are of considerable importance for all scholars interested in the study of Roman Law during the fifth century. As far as I can see, however, no one has dealt with the text during the last ten years. The reason for this lack of interest probably lies in the somewhat unattractive form of the editio princeps. Segrè's edition is obviously of a temporary nature. It contains an apographum of the much mutilated text and a few explanatory notes. Segrè neither gave a transcription of the text, nor did he attempt to fill in the gaps. He believed—wrongly, as we shall see—the missing part of the text columns to be very much greater than that in our possession, and therefore thought it wise to refrain from any reconstruction. In fact his edition gives us not a single complete line of the text. It is also regrettable that Segrè did not include a photograph of at least a small part of the papyrus. In the following brief notes I wish to make some suggestions to a future editor; for a new and revised edition is indispensable. Further, I wish to show that even the text of the present edition deserves the attention of students of Roman Law, who should not postpone its study till the publication of a better edition.

Julian of Ascalon's Treatise of Construction and Design Rules from Sixth-Century Palestine

2001 ◽  
Vol 60 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Besim S. Hakim
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Built Environment ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Byzantine Empire ◽  
Important Work ◽  
Design Rules ◽  
Technical Aspects ◽  
Coastal City ◽  
Building Activities

This is a study of a treatise by Julian of Ascalon, an architect and a native of the Byzantine Palestinian coastal city of Ascalon and a contemporary of the Byzantine emperor Justinian I (A. D. 483-565; reigned 527-565). There is some consensus that the treatise was written during the years 531-533, when the codification of Roman law that resulted in the influential Corpus Juris Civilis was undertaken upon Justinian's order. Julian's treatise is a compilation of construction and design rules that address the prevention of nuisances and potential damages to proximate neighbors resulting from building activities associated with change and growth in the built environment. The influence of the treatise endured intermittently for almost 1,400 years, first in Constantinople, then in the eastern territories of the Byzantine empire, and later in some Slavic countries; in Greece it survived well into the twentieth century. This is the first study to analyze the rationale and technical aspects of the prescriptions and design rules in Julian's important work.

Classical and Post-Classical Roman Law

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul du Plessis
Keyword(s):  
Fifth Century ◽  
Legal Order ◽  
Important Influence ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Legal Tradition

This chapter surveys Roman law as an important influence upon the development of law in the European legal tradition. Starting with the origins of the Roman state in the myth of Romulus and Remus, it provides an account of the main constitutional structures of the Roman state across time. These structures provide the backdrop for a larger discussion of the nature of Roman law, the sources of law, and the changes to the Roman legal order. The chapter ends with the ‘fall’ of the Western Empire in the fifth century ad and leaves the discussion of Justinianic Roman law to another chapter elsewhere in this volume.

The Christological Debates and the Miracles and Sufferings of Christ

2018 ◽  
pp. 56-88
Author(s):  
Philip Michael Forness
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Proper Understanding ◽  
Cyril Of Alexandria ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter traces the history of the Christological language of the miracles and sufferings of Christ from the fourth through sixth centuries. Armenian, Coptic, Latin, Greek, and Syriac texts pair the miracles of Christ with the sufferings of Christ to express the relationship between his divinity and humanity. This pairing first appeared in Cappadocia in the late fourth century, but it became a source of controversy especially through Cyril of Alexandria and Nestorios of Constantinople’s disagreement. The presence of this phrase in Pope Leo I’s Tome led to further disagreements at the Council of Chalcedon in 451. The Emperor Zeno used this phrase in an imperial decree issued in 482, known as the Henotikon, and it would later be codified in Roman law through the Emperor Justinian I. Miaphysite leaders, including Jacob of Serugh, debated the proper understanding of Christology in reference to this phrase in the early sixth century.

Early “Italian” Scholars of Ius Gentium

2020 ◽  
pp. 19-47
Author(s):  
Claudia Storti
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Legal Order ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Legal Tradition ◽  
Shared Set ◽  
Law Of Nations ◽  
International Legal Order ◽  
The Law ◽  
Ius Gentium

Between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries several issues led jurists to rethink the international legal order established in the Roman Empire and the Early Middle Ages. The first was the need to update the list of the law of nations legitimate subjects after the birth of the commune that had not been accounted for in Roman-law sources. The second was to recreate a superior and universally shared set of ‘public’ law rules for international relations to counteract the tendency of communal and monarchical governments to consider the law inter gentes as a form of internal law. In order to address this issue Bartolus of Sassoferrato adapted the Roman category of ius gentium to the features of the medieval geopolitical context. Other topics focused on defining the enemy, freedom of peoples, and treaties among unequal subjects, while the theory of ius gentium of Alberico Gentili was fully rooted in the medieval and early modern legal tradition.

6. Interests in Property

2020 ◽  
pp. 153-180
Author(s):  
Paul J. du Plessis
Keyword(s):  
Legal Order ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Classical Period ◽  
Profound Impact ◽  
Legal Rules ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The World ◽  
Ownership Rights ◽  
Legal Consequences

This chapter deals primarily with the various interests that could be acquired in property, particularly ownership, rights to servitudes, and possession. The Roman law of property is one of the lasting and important legacies of their legal order and has had a profound impact upon modern legal systems across the world. This chapter begins by considering the Roman classification of property. This was the intellectual starting point in the teaching manuals preserved from the classical period of Roman law. The purpose of this exercise in classification was to demonstrate that certain objects fell outside the sphere of private ownership. Apart from issues of classification, this chapter deals primarily with the various interests that could be acquired in property, particularly ownership, limited real rights over the property of others, such as rights to servitudes, and possession. It deals with the legal rules governing these institutions and their interrelationships. In theory, the interests in property may be divided into two broad categories, namely legal interests (ownership and limited real rights) and factual interests (possession). While such a division is useful, it should not be seen as absolute, since possession, though largely a question of fact, could also have certain legal consequences. But first the Roman classification of property must be considered.

scholarly journals ROMAN LAW AND THE TWO LANGUAGES IN JUSTINIAN'S EMPIRE

2017 ◽  
Vol 60 (1) ◽  
pp. 96-116
Author(s):  
SIMON CORCORAN
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Cultural Diversity ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Law Schools ◽  
The West ◽  
Greek East ◽  
Relationship Of

Abstract This paper, reflecting Fergus Millar's work on linguistic and cultural diversity in the Roman empire, surveys the evolving relationship of Latin and Greek as languages for Roman law. Normative texts remained predominantly Latin until the completion of Justinian's codification (534), even though that was a genuinely bilingual product. However, following the already existing pattern in the Greek east, a vast corpus of Greek materials was then quickly created to teach the codification in the official law schools. Designed to aid engagement with the source-texts, these ended up superseding them. Roman legal Greek, a mixture of Latin terminology plus standardized Greek vocabulary, became stabilized. After 534, new legislation was most often in Greek, necessitating parallel Latin materials to help Latin-speaking students, although sixth-century collections of Novels (‘new laws’) were still bilingual. In practice, however, in most of Justinian's empire, a lawyer (such as Dioscorus of Aphrodito) could function with limited Latin. Soon Roman law would bifurcate into two monolingual traditions, Greek in the east, Latin in the west.

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