B O O K R E V I

Olga Tellegen-Couperus* BOOKREVIEW Justinian's Digest and the Compilers, by David Pugsley. Like the Bible, the Digest of the Roman emperor Justinian contains a colourful collection of texts which despite or perhaps rather because of their contradictory contents have become very influential in Western Europe since the Middle Ages. From its preface we know why, how and by whom the Digest, a collection of classical Roman law texts, was made. Yet we do not know exactly on what way the texts were compiled. In the past as well as in modern times, numerous attempts were made to reconstruct the working on the Digest. The book which is being discussed here contains the most recent one. It was written by David Pugsley, professor of Roman law at Exeter. The book consists of six articles which were published between 1991 and 1995. Five of them deal with the way in which the compilers tackled the Digest. Pugsley added his paper on Gaius or Pomponius, because "the crucial text on Gaius, D. 45.3.39, is also important for the progress of the compiler's work". The six articles were not revised for this publication, only at the last moment a postscript was added. In the first article (p.l-15) Pugsley tries to connect the work on the Digest with an important historical event of time, the so-called Victory riots. The Digest was made between 530 and 533 A.D. , a very short period in view of the large number of books which had to be read and excerpted. Nearly 1300 years later, in 1820, Bluhme was able to show that the writings of the classical jurists were collected in four groups or "Massen". There were three main masses, which Bluhme named after their opening works, Sabianic (S), Edictal (E) and Papianic (P); a fourth group, much smaller than the other three, was called the * Professor of History of Law at Tilburg University, The Netherlands. Appendix masse (A). We do not know why there was a fourth mass. The traditional view is that the fourth mass should be assigned to the Papianic compilers. Pugsley suggests that the existence of the Appendix as a separate mass was caused by the Victory riots. What had happened? From 13 to 18 January 532 Constantinople was subject to mob rule, as a result of which large areas of the city were burnt or looted or even both, and thirty or forty thousand people were killed. Even the palace, where the compilers were busy excerpting, was no longer a safe place. Triboni- an, the minister of finance who was in charge of the Digest project, rightly or wrongly had a reputation for bribery and corruption. He fled, probably followed by the other five compilers. They picked up some of the classical works and escaped with them to a place of greater safety, where they carried on with the excerpting process. All six main compilers were involved, and in principle each compiler had the same number of books to excerpt. The extracts were all filed together in one mass, separate from the other three, the Appendix mass. The second article (p.17-39) is called "Plans and Interruptions". It contains a survey showing which books by classical jurists were excerpted at the same time. According to Pugsley, Tribonian and two professors of the Constantinople lawschool had a trial run on a small portion of the material, in particular on the S and E masses. In the light of that experience it was decided that extra manpower was needed. Tribonian asked the law minister Constantinus and two professors from the famous Beirut lawschool to join them. It was only then that work on the P mass was started. Pugsley infers from the survey that the work on the Digest was interrupted in January 532 by the Victory riots. The subject of the third paper in this book (p.41-52) is the so- called Index Florentinus. It is a list of works by classical jurists, grouped per author, of which the Digest is composed. The list begins with Julian and Papanian, followed by 36 other jurists, in roughly chronological order. Clearly it is not an index or catalogue. Pugsley thinks that the Index is a list of manuscripts in the order in which they were to be found in a library, i. e. in the imperial law library which had been founded by Constantine when he made Constantinople the new capital of the Roman empire. Some sound arguments are put forward to support this idea. However, his suggestion that Tribonian rediscovered this library and persuaded Justinian to give his permission to publish the works in it in some form, seems rather fantastic; it is unlikely that the lawschool of Constantinople would have no library at all. The fourth article is called "Dates" (p.53-74). In 531 Justinian issued 50 laws solving old controversies between classical jurists. Most of these so-called law reform constitutions are dated. Pugsley assumes .

Load more