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212
Caracalla’s Edict
When the Emperor Caracalla came to power he promulgated an important edict on the year 212:he stated that all the people living in the Roman Empire would become citizens, so they had the privilege of following the Ius Civile that made them have the biggest number of rights and legal equality.
Before Caracalla only the people living in Rome were citizens, they were the only ones with the right to follow the Ius Civile while the people living in other parts of the Empire had to follow other laws. -
Period: 212 to 527
Post-Classical Roman Law
The post-classical era is a period but it also means distance from the classical sources and their deterioration. There was a prevalence of the statutes (Emperor’s law). During this time the jurists’ activity disappeared (ius publicae respondendi) and there was a unification between the lex(law) and the iura (jurisprudence, jurists’ opinions).
The end of this period is marked by the time that Justinian came to power . -
Period: 212 to 527
Dominate
Political meaning of this period:
The Emperor concentrated all the power (Dominus et Deus), this meant he had the control over every field: judicial, legislative and the government. Since he had all the power the laws became Imperial Enactments (constitutions). There were three types of Imperial Enactments: the general laws, the special laws and the Pragmatica. -
Period: 284 to 305
Diocletian
He was the first person that tried to recover the power that the Roman Empire had in the classical period. He decided to divide the empire for a better administration and this made the empire fall into chaos.
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Period: 284 to 305
Codes we can find during Diocletian’s time
The codex Gregorianus, it is from a private compilation of laws. They felt the need to collect laws for the use of practice and teaching, specially iurisprudentia. It had contents related to criminal law and administrative law.
The Codex Hermogenianus, it was a legal compilation of private laws, that extracted their materials from the imperial archives. It collected imperial constitutions and rescripts also for the use of practise and teaching. -
395
Roman Empire Division
After the Emperor Diocletian made the first division of the Empire and after 100 years of more divisions, in the year 395 a.D. the Emperor Thedosius decided to divide the Empire between his two sons, and here was formed what we call the Eastern and Western Empire. While the Eastern territory achieved a certain stability, the Western Empire was plagued by political conflicts and the progressive advance of the barbarian tribes. Timetoast -
Period: 418 to 701
Visigoths’ Settlement
They made an alliance with Rome. They needed lands and they were looking for a better way to live, so they agreed on defending the Empire, so the Romans would let them stay in Aquitania.
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Period: 438 to 654
Visigothic sources
Among the Visigothics sources of law we have to do a distinction between Roman law and Germanic law.
In the first categories we find the code Theodosianus and the Breviary of Alaric. In the second one we find the Code of Euric and Code Revisus.
The liber Iudiciorum instead was in forced for both Romans and Germans. Timetoat -
Period: 466 to 484
Euric
He promulgated the Code of Euric, where he put the laws preserved by the tradition to writing (he was the first king to do it). This Code is made by a vulgar Roman Law because he was into the Roman Empire and he decided that the most important rules were the Roman ones.
Nowadays we don’t conserve the entire Code, we only have some parts of it.
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Period: 476 to 600
Western and Eastern Roman Empire During the age without jurists
During this period the in Western Roman Empire the legal culture was in crisis and the jurists were capable of only a little more than reading. But in the Eastern Roman Empire the situation was totally different in a much better way because they had really rich libraries like the ones in Alexandria and Berytus and also because of Justinian’s work in the legal aspect -
Period: 476 to 600
An age without jurists
The dissaperance of the jurists The jurists didn’t exist as a profesional category until the 12th century, during this time there was a big crisis with epidemics, huger,… so the most important thing was to survive. Because of that, there were no professors and the cultural elites were in total collapse, so the jurists were not prepared to interpret norms or laws, because they had no one to teach them abut it. -
506
Breviary of Alaric II
It was approved in an assembly of bishops and representatives of the King. Its content was : Roman Law (leges,imperial constitutions, and iura,replies by classical jurists), Sources (Codex Theodosianus, Codex Gregorianus, Libri responsorum of Papiniano,…), Interpretatio ( this was necessary to clarify law, but there was less in the Epitome, because it was a summary already) and the Commonitorium (it is a warning and it was the only texts for trials). -
Period: 527 to 565
Justinian
He was the last Emperor that tried to recover the power that the Roman Empire had in the classical period. He ruled over the Eastern Empire and he tried to: recover territories for a territorial unification, achieve religious peace and restore the old Roman law. His compilation was really important for the history of law; it was formed by: the Codex (Code), Digesta (Jurisprudence),Instituta (Books for teaching, textbooks) and Novellae (Latest statutes).
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Period: 568 to 586
Leovigild
He was the first King that defended that the Visigoths were different from the Romans because they had their own activity, they were independent from them, he believed that the Visigoths’ Kings had all the power (plenitud potestatis). He achieved a territorial unification by defeating the Suevi and the Byzantines.
He promulgated the codex Revisus, that was a revision of the Code of Euric. Since this Code didn’t survive its laws appeared in the Liber Iudiciorum with the inscription, antiquae. -
Period: 649 to 672
Reccesvinth
His main goal was strengthening the royal power against the nobility.He is remembered because he managed for the fusion between his kingdom and the Romans, establishing a common legislation with the liber iudiciorum, that was in forced for both of them (654).
In this way was born the territorial theory of law.The Liber was also known as the book for trials, it consisted of several laws promulgated by different Visigoths kings.It remained in force until the early Middle Ages. -
654
Personal vs. Territorial theory
According to the personal theory the law you apply to someone is based on the population they belong to,meaning that there could be different laws enforced at the same time,an example of this is that,simultaneously,the hispano-romans followed the Breviary while the visigoths followed the Code of Euric. But,the territorial theory states that anyone who lives in the same place has to follow the same laws,as an example,everybody living in the visigoths' territory had to follow the visigothic codes -
Period: 1001 to 1200
A time for changes
The 11th and 12th centuries were a time for big changes,for example the Church split into the Eastern and Western Roman Empire and we started to find jurists again,the legal concepts began to reappear.Also,during this time the source of law materials was the Roman Law,which Irnerius began to recover. Among his other duties he started to:collect Justinian’s compilation,he achieved responsibility for the rise of civil Common Law and the formation of the Corpus Iuris Civilis (Body of civil law),.. -
Period: 1050 to 1125
Irnerius
Irnerius was an Italian jurist that began to recover the law code. Probably he was so famous because he realised that the people needed a new law, the Ius Commune. He said that the truth were Justinian’s laws, because it was a law for the Empire
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1075
Dictatus Papae
The principles expressed in the Dictatus Papae are mostly those that appear on the Gregoryan reform in the canonical life, which had been initiated by Gregory Decades before he became the pope. Because of this there was a conflict between the church and the state (called the investiture conflict),over the ability to choose and instal bishops and abbots of the monasteries and even the pope himself. -
1088
University of Bologna
The University of Bologna was founded in the 11th century in Bologna (an important trade city and jurists were needed there) by the Italian jurist Irnelius. It was very known because of the law degree.