ſtitutions of ſucceſſive emperors) had grown to ſo great a bulk, or, as Livy expreſſes it[1], “tam immenſus aliarum ſuper alias acervatarum legum cumulus,” that they were computed to be many camels’ load by an author who preceded Juſtinian[2]. This was in part remedied by the collections of three private lawyers, Gregorius, Hermogenes, and Papirius; and then by the emperor Theodoſius the younger, by whoſe orders a code was compiled, A. D. 438, being a methodical collection of all the imperial conſtitutions then in force: which Theodoſian code was the only book of civil law received as authentic in the weſtern part of Europe till many centuries after; and to this it is probable that the Franks and Goths might frequently pay ſome regard, in framing legal conſtitutions for their newly erected kingdoms. For Juſtinian commanded only in the eaſtern remains of the empire; and it was under his auſpices, that the preſent body of civil law was compiled and finiſhed by Tribonian and other lawyers, about the year 533.
This conſiſts of, 1. The inſtitutes, which contain the elements or firſt principles of the Roman law, in four books. 2. The digeſts, or pandects, in fifty books, containing the opinions and writings of eminent lawyers, digeſted in a ſyſtematical method. 3. A new code, or collection of imperial conſtitutions, the lapſe of a whole century having rendered the former code, of Theodoſius, imperfect. 4. The novels, or new conſtitutions, poſterior in time to the other books, and amounting to a ſupplement to the code; containing new decrees of ſucceſſive emperors, as new questions happened to ariſe. Theſe form the body of Roman law, or corpus juris civilis, as publiſhed about the time of Juſtinian: which however fell ſoon into neglect and oblivion, till about the year 1130, when a copy of the digeſts was found at Amalfi in Italy; which accident, concurring with the policy of the Romiſh eccleſiaſtics[3], ſuddenly gave new vogue and authority to the civil law, introduced it into ſeveral nations, and occaſioned that
- ↑ l. 3. c. 34.
- ↑ Taylor’s elements of civil law. 17.
- ↑ See §. 1. pag. 18.
