69 The Justinian Code
Learning Objective
- Explain the historical significance of Justinian’s legal reforms
Key Points
- Shortly after Justinian became emperor in 527, he decided the empire’s legal system needed repair.
- Early in his reign, Justinian appointed an official, Tribonian, to oversee this task.
- The project as a whole became known as Corpus juris civilis, or the Justinian Code.
- It consists of the Codex Iustinianus, the Digesta, the Institutiones, and the Novellae.
- Many of the laws contained in the Codex were aimed at regulating religious practice.
- The Corpus formed the basis not only of Roman jurisprudence (including ecclesiastical Canon Law), but also influenced civil law throughout the Middle Ages and into modern nation states.
Terms
Corpus juris civilis
The modern name for a collection of fundamental works in jurisprudence, issued from 529 to 534 by order of Justinian I, Eastern Roman Emperor.
Justinian I
A Byzantine emperor from 527 to 565. During his reign, he sought to revive the empire’s greatness and reconquer the lost western half of the historical Roman Empire; he also enacted important legal codes.
Byzantine Emperor Justinian I achieved lasting fame through his judicial reforms, particularly through the complete revision of all Roman law, something that had not previously been attempted. There existed three codices of imperial laws and other individual laws, many of which conflicted or were out of date. The total of Justinian’s legislature is known today as the Corpus juris civilis.
The work as planned had three parts:
- Codex: a compilation, by selection and extraction, of imperial enactments to date, going back to Hadrian in the 2nd century CE.
- Digesta: an encyclopedia composed of mostly brief extracts from the writings of Roman jurists. Fragments were taken out of various legal treatises and opinions and inserted in the Digesta.
- Institutiones: a student textbook, mainly introducing the Codex, although it has important conceptual elements that are less developed in the Codex or the Digesta.
All three parts, even the textbook, were given force of law. They were intended to be, together, the sole source of law; reference to any other source, including the original texts from which the Codex and the Digesta had been taken, was forbidden. Nonetheless, Justinian found himself having to enact further laws, and today these are counted as a fourth part of the Corpus, the Novellae Constitutiones. As opposed to the rest of the Corpus, the Novellae appeared in Greek, the common language of the Eastern Empire.
The work was directed by Tribonian, an official in Justinian’s court. His team was authorized to edit what they included. How far they made amendments is not recorded and, in the main, cannot be known because most of the originals have not survived. The text was composed and distributed almost entirely in Latin, which was still the official language of the government of the Byzantine Empire in 529-534, whereas the pr