Codex Justinianus
The Codex Justinian is one of four parts of the designated later as the Corpus juris Civilis. The collection of laws was the Roman Emperor Justinian on February 13, 528 AD with the Constitutio de novo codice Componendo (also called Constitutio Haec ) commissioned, which he ordered to collect all imperial laws still in force. The compilers were doing considerable leeway when it came to the reduction and updating. An important objective of the then only a few months ruling, energetic ruler was the establishment of the unity of the late ancient Roman legal system.
The Codex Justinian were older private collections of the imperial constitutions by Gregorius ( 2nd-3rd century AD, Codex Gregorianus ) and Hermogenian ( 293-294 AD, Codex Hermogenianus ) and an official collection by Emperor Theodosius II ( 438 AD, the Theodosian Code ) operating systems.
History
Content contradictions between the classical Roman law, which had been written in Latin and had experienced its heyday in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, and the late antique legal practice of the 5th and 6th century presented a significant, if not insurmountable obstacle to the imperial management dar. It should be overcome by additional supplements the Emperor physiques to a Gesamtkodifikation. The language of the Code of Justinian is consistently Latin, because at 530 it was still the language of the Eastern Roman administration and jurisdiction. However, increased the influence of the Greek, which is why Justinian, though even Latin speakers, published most of the new laws ( short stories ) in Greek by 535, so that they would be better understood by the population.
In charge of the action was Justinian's quaestor sacri palatii Tribonian, who was supported by legal scholars from the famous law school of Beirut and from Constantinople Opel. The Codex consists of 12 books: Book 1 has the church over the content of the books 2-8 private law and private processes; Book 9 deals with criminal law and criminal procedure; books 10-12 eventually handle the administrative law and financial law.
The first version of the Codex has already been set on April 7, 529 by the Constitutio Summa in force and should apply from 16 April of that year as the sole source of imperial law. This version was ( Constitutio Cordi ) replaced on November 16, 534 of a second (Codex Repetitae Praelectionis ), which should apply from 29 December 534 and - has been preserved - with few gaps. Fragments of the first version of 529 have survived only on papyrus ( P. Oxy especially. XV 1814), which allows some conclusions about the differences between the two versions. These were mainly due to the Quinquaginta Decisiones ( "Fifty Decisions" ), new provisions Justinian could appear early overtaken on the key elements that had been enacted since 530 and the first version of the Codex.
The Codex offered a summary of the still valid Kaiser laws ( edicts ) from the time of Emperor Hadrian ( 117-138 ) as to the year 534, and thus represents together with the about a hundred years older Theodosian Code the main source for both the classical Roman law also for the late antique legal practice dar. it was important that all laws are not included in the Codex henceforth ceases to be valid, while all decrees collected in it got attributed to direct the force of law. How strongly intervened in the compilers while the texts of the older laws and edicts, is controversial; in any case, they almost always painted everything that could have pointed to the specific context of legal regulation, which often complicates the historical evaluation of the laws.
Emperor Hadrian was chosen by Justinian's lawyers as a starting point, because it enacted under this ruler who had the praetorian edict, had changed the nature of Roman legislation. The Codex were in addition to the translation of Emperor constitutions also into Greek writings of classical Roman jurists, the Digest, and a textbook of Roman law, the institutions attached. These components were linked content by removing existing inconsistencies, but they were not part of Codex, but complement it to Corpus juris Civilis. The stories, the leges novellae, the new regulations were also included only from 535 contained, which were written as I said mostly (also) in Greek (if they concerned primarily Latin -speaking parts of the Empire ). Many of these stories have been preserved only in the Greek version, but all the evidence suggests that it always gave also official Latin texts at least for the range- valid laws of Justinian (see Kaiser 2012).
The work represents the final culmination of the ancient Roman justice and unfolded since the High Middle Ages, when the University of Bologna rediscovered the Codex, a tremendous impact that continues to this day: at that time experienced the Codex Justinian and the other parts of the Corpus Juris in Western Europe Renaissance after the Codex during the late late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages in the West ( where was the Theodosian Code have been far more influential ) had gained little importance.