Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/76

58 THE CLASSICAL HERITAGE [chap. interpretation ^ had the effect of checking the develop- ment of the law. The first was a declaration that the legal principles and rules evolved by the past should be accepted without question; it tended to prevent their loss or corruption. It was anticipatory of the general attitude of deference of the mediaeval cen- turies toward what had come down from antiquity. The men who labored at the command of Theodosius or Justinian could not add to the legal science of Paulus and Papinian any more than Capella could add to the contents of the seven liberal arts, of which his De Nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii afforded a compen- dium. Codes did not impede the development of a law which the men of the time had not the faculty to advance ; rather they tended to preserve the law from corruption and oblivion.^ The Theodosian code and Ulpian, and Modestinus, and provided that in case of divergent dicta the party having the greater number on his side should pre- vail, save where the authorities were equally divided, and then he having Papinian on his side should prevail. 1 Z. 12 Cod. de leg., I, 14. See Windscheid, Pandektenrechtf Bd. I, § 25. 2 The principal collections or codifications of Roman law within the Roman Empire were : The Codes of Gregorianus and Hermoge- nianus, made at the end of the third century; these were collec- tions of imperial rescripts and were the work of private persons, but they received statutory recognition from Theodosius and Valen- tinian. The Codex Theodosianus and the novellae constitutiones, published subsequently by Theodosius and by his successors. This emperor's plan was to enact a single comprehensive code drawn from writings of the jurists, from the Gregorian and Hermogenian collections of rescripts, and from the edicts of prior emperors. The Codex was first published at Constantinople in the year 438, and the next year went into force in the West. Legislation of Justinian : The Codex (529 a.d.), a collection of statutes, intended to be the sole repertory of statutory law ; the Digesta or Pandectae (533 a.d.) ,