Justinian and His Age

1951

Brasch DF572 UR2

Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books

Justinian I (ca. 482-565) ruled what was left of the Roman Empire from Constantinople (Istanbul, Turkey) and during his reign, in 527, he ordered that all Roman laws be written down. The result, published in 533, was the Corpus Iuris Civilis (Corpus of Civil Law), which became ‘the code of Roman law that was inherited by modern Europe’ (Shelton). The Corpus filled three volumes and was made up of four parts. Part one was the Code expounded all the laws; part two, the Digest, was a collection of legal writings; part three, Institutes, was a text-book for students of law; and part four, Novels, were new laws which had been passed after 534. Some of these new laws were sensible, such as the law against collusion between a plaintiff and a judge, but others, as displayed here, seem nonsensical to us; law 77 ‘forbids swearing and blasphemy’ as it may cause ‘famines, earthquakes and pestilences’.