Justinian I depicted on a mosaic in the church of San Vitale, Ravenna, Italy
The Corpus Juris Civilis (Body of Civil Law) is a fundamental work in jurisprudence, issued from 529 to 534 by order of Justinian I, Byzantine Emperor.
Justinian gave orders to collect legal materials of various kinds into several new codes. These codes became the basis of the revival of Roman law in the middle ages. This revived Roman law, in turn, became the foundation of law in all civil law jurisdictions. The provisions of the Corpus Juris Civilis also influenced the canon law of the church since it was said that ecclesia vivit lege romana - the church lives under Roman law.
The work was directed by Tribonian, an official in Justinian's court, and distributed in three parts: Digesta (or "Pandectae"), Institutiones, the Codex. A fourth part, the Novels (or "Novellae Constitutiones"), was added later.
Codex Justinianus
Codex Justinianus (a.k.a. Justinian Code) was the first part to be completed on April 7, 529.
It collects the constitutiones (statutes) of the Roman Emperors. The earliest constitution preserved in the code was made from Emperor Hadrian, the latest constitutiones come from Justinianus himself. The compilers of the code could draw on earlier works like the official Codex Theodosianus and private collections like the Codex Gregorianus and the Codex Hermogenianus. Due to the legal reforms by the same Justinian, this work needed to be updated, so a second edition of the Codex (the so-called "Codex repetitae praelectionis") was issued in 534, after the Digest.
The Code reflects the social order of the later empire. The position of the emperor as an absolute monarch with unlimited legislative, executive and judicial power is implicit throughout the code. Numerous provisions serve to secure the status of Christianity as the state religion of the empire. Among these provisions are several enactments to the prejudice of other religions like Judaism. Jews were disqualified from public office and disadvantaged in a number of ways.
Digesta
- Main article: Pandects.
The Digesta or Pandectae consist of a collection of legal writings mostly dating back to the second and third centuries B.C. Fragments were taken out of various legal treatises and opinions and inserted in the Digest. In their original context, the statements of the law contained in these fragments were just private opinions of legal scholars. The Digest, however, was given the force of law, like the other parts of the Corpus Iuris.
Institutiones
As the Digest neared completion, Tribonian and two professors, Theophilus and Dorotheus, made a sort of manual for jurists, called the Institutiones or the elements. As there were four elements, the manual also consists of four books. The Institutiones are largely based on the Institutiones of Gaius. Two thirds of the Institutiones of Justinian consists of literal quotes from Gaius. The new Institutiones were used as a manual for jurists in training since 21 November 533 and were given the authority of law on 30 December 533 along with the Digest.
Recovery in the West
Justinian's Corpus Juris Civilis was lost in the West, where it was scarcely needed in the primitive conditions that followed the collapse of Odoacer's sub-Roman kingdom. Historians disagree on the precise way it was recovered in Northern Italy about 1070: perhaps it was waiting unneeded and unnoticed in a library until the legal studies that were undertaken on behalf of papal authority that was central to the Gregorian Reform of Pope Gregory VII led to its accidental rediscovery. Aside from the Littera Florentina, a 6th-century codex of the Pandects that was jealously preserved at Pisa, since 1406 at Florence, there may have been other manuscript sources for the text that began to be taught at Bologna, by Pepo and then by Irnerius, whose technique was to read a passage aloud, which permitted his students to copy it, then to deliver an excursus explaining and illuminating Justinian's text, in the form of glosses. Irmerius' pupils, the "Four Doctors" were among the first of the "Glossators" who established the curriculum of Roman law.
The merchant classes of Italian communes required law with a concept of equity and which covered situations inherent in urban life better than the primitive Germanic oral traditions. The provenance of the Code appealed to scholars who saw in the Holy Roman Empire a revival of venerable precedents from the classical heritage. The new class of lawyers staffed the bureaucracies that were beginning to be required by the princes of Europe. The University of Bologna, where Justinian's Code was first taught, remained the dominant center for the study of law through the High Middle Ages.
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