What is the Corpus Juris Civilis?
The Corpus Juris Civilis is a foundational collection of jurisprudence enacted by Roman Emperor Justinian I between 529 and 534 AD. Directed by the official Tribonian, the work combined imperial enactments, jurist writings, and a student textbook into four main parts to serve as the exclusive source of law. It ultimately became the bedrock of modern civil law systems and heavily influenced canon and public international law.
What we know
- The Corpus Juris Civilis was enacted between 529 and 534 by order of Roman Emperor Justinian I. [1, 2]
- The planned work consisted of three initial parts: the Code, the Digest, and the Institutes, with later laws counted as a fourth part called the Novels. [2]
- The project was directed by Tribonian, an official in Justinian's court in Constantinople, whose team was authorized to edit the included texts. [2]
- The text was composed and distributed almost entirely in Latin, although Greek later predominated and the work was revised into the Basilika. [2]
Still open
- The exact extent to which Tribonian's team made amendments to the original texts is unrecorded and largely unknown because most of the originals did not survive.
Where to go next
- whoWho was Tribonian and what was his role?
- how it workedWhat were the four parts of Justinian's code?
- what followedHow did Roman law influence modern civil law jurisdictions?
- compared withWhat is the Corpus Juris Canonici?
- a case in pointHow does Roman law appear in the Constitution of San Marino?
- an unexpected connectionHow did a sixth-century Roman legal code shape a modern European republic?The constitutional system of San Marino, the world's oldest surviving sovereign constitution, shows direct historical influences from Justinian's 6th-century Roman legal code.
Sources
- [1]Corpus Juris Civilis (Wikidata Q187719) · CC0 1.0
- [2]Corpus Juris Civilis · CC BY-SA 4.0
- [3]Corpus Juris Canonici · CC BY-SA 4.0
- [4]History of tort law · CC BY-SA 4.0
- [5]Constitution of San Marino · CC BY-SA 4.0