DOCSLIB.ORG

Roman Law and Reception by Lorena Atzeri

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Roman Law and Reception by Lorena Atzeri Roman Law and Reception by Lorena Atzeri This contribution offers an overview of the origin, development and persistence of Roman law from its origins in the 8th century BC to the 19th century AD. Roman law and its sources, above all the Justinianic Codification – the so called Corpus Iuris Civilis – have left an indelible imprint on the development of law in Europe and laid the foundation of many European legal systems. The role of Roman law within the legal science in the Middle Ages and the modern period will therefore also be treated here. Moreover, this article will discuss the fundamental relationship between Roman and Canon law and the reception of Roman law in many countries in Europe. TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Introduction and Periodisation 2. Public Law and Private Law 3. Legal Sources in the Republican Period 1. Lex and mos 2. The Law of the Twelve Tables 3. Jurisprudence and its Origins 4. The Stratification of the Legal System: Magisterial Law 4. Roman Legal Science 1. The End of a Legal Monopoly 2. The Formation of a Secular Jurisprudence 3. Jurists during the Imperial Period 5. Imperial Laws and their Collections 1. Codex Gregorianus and Codex Hermogenianus 2. Codex Theodosianus 3. Post-Theodosian Novels 4. The Leges barbarorum 5. Lex Romana Visigothorum or Breviarium Alarici 6. Lex Romana Burgundionum 7. Edictum Theoderici 6. The Corpus Iuris Civilis of Emperor Justinian I 1. First Codex 2. Digest 3. Institutes 4. Second Codex (or Codex Repetitae Praelectionis) 5. Novels 7. The Validity and Range of Influence of the Justinian Compilation 8. Roman Law in the Middle Ages 1. The Rediscovery of the Digest 2. The School of Bologna: the Glossators 3. The Commentators 9. Roman Law in the Modern Period 1. The Influence of Humanism: Mos Italicus and mos Gallicus 2. The Reception of Roman Law in Europe: France and Germany 3. Usus Modernus Pandectarum 4. The Reception of Roman Law in the Netherlands: the "Dutch Elegant School" 5. The Roman Law Tradition up to the 19th Century 10. Appendix 1. Links 2. Literature 3. Notes Indices Citation Introduction and Periodisation The concept "Roman Law"1 has assumed various meanings in the course of time. Thus it refers to the Roman legal system in its historical aspect, the Roman law tradition, that is, the persistence of Roman law in the various European legal systems (➔ Media Link #ab), the Common Law (➔ Media Link #ac), German Pandectism, and finally today's Roman law studies. The subject of the latter is Roman law in its content and history. It is not possible to treat Roman law here in the last-named respect. This account will therefore relate mainly to Roman law in the sense of the legal system of ancient Rome, the rediscovery of Roman law in the Middle Ages, and its spread in the single European countries up to the 19th century. Particular attention is paid to the rise and development of this law, to those involved in its creation, and to its sources. ▲1 The development of Roman law begins, in the traditional view, with the origins of Rome in 753 BC, and ends with the death of Emperor Justinian I (482–565) (➔ Media Link #ad). Justinian had had Roman law codified in its entirety, thus decisively influencing the subsequent development of law in Europe. These 14 centuries have been periodised variously by modern historiography and Roman law studies. The following is based on the most common division to be found in Roman law manuals: Monarchy (753–509 BC), Republic (509–27 BC), Principate (27 BC–284 AD) and Dominate (284–565 AD). ▲2 Public Law and Private Law The Romans themselves made the distinction between public law and private law. The most famous formulation of this distinction stems from the jurist Domitius Ulpianus (ca. 170–ca. 228 AD) (➔ Media Link #ae): "Ius publicum est quod ad statum rei romanae spectat, privatum quod ad singulorum utilitatem" (Public law is that which relates to the system of the Roman state, and private law that which relates to the interests of the individual: Digest 1.1.1.2). Thus public law relates to the organizational structure of society, and private law, by contrast, to its individual members and their relations with one another. Within public law, the Roman jurist Ulpian distinguished several sub-areas: "Publicum ius in sacris, in sacerdotibus, in magistratibus consistit" (Public law regulates the state cult, the priesthood and the magistrates: Digest 1.1.1.2). ▲3 Roman private law was based on various factors, and passed through a number of stages of development. The tripartite division of this sphere of law into personae, res, actiones (persons, things, lawsuits) was introduced by the Roman jurist Gaius (➔ Media Link #af) in his Institutes (an introductory textbook for law students). This division, upon which the emperor Justinian I also based his own Institutes, still builds the basic structure of many modern codifications (➔ Media Link #ag). Roman private law includes obligations and contracts, possession and property, relationships, marriage and marital property law, guardianship, legal and testamentary inheritance etc. It also includes delicta (delicts, unlawful acts, wrongs against an individual) such as furtum (theft) or iniuria (personal injury). Principles such as "good faith", "obligational relationship", and "liability" were introduced and further developed by the Romans. These institutions still serve as the basis of modern legal systems. They will not, however, be dealt with here because of their complexity. ▲4 Legal Sources in the Republican Period The succession of the different forms of government in the course of Roman history had a considerable influence on the ways in which law is created. The individual legal sources, as to their development and significance, underwent correspondingly great changes. ▲5 Lex and mos In the beginning, the king alone possessed the public powers, including that of law-making. Thus the leges regiae (royal laws) sanctioned by the king were, together with the mores (customs), the sole legal source. After the introduction of the Republic these laws lost their validity. ▲6 During the Republican era, which is characterized by the office of the consules, and the considerable weight of the popular assemblies, the leges populi Romani (laws of the Roman people, also called leges publicae) acquired increasing importance. The most important republican institutions and offices – consuls, popular assemblies and the senate – participated in the law-giving procedure. The plebeians also had their own magistrates and popular assemblies (the concilia plebis), whose resolutions were valid only for the plebeians themselves. At the latest from the 3rd century BC, however, the resolutions of the plebeian popular assembly were made equal to the leges publicae, and thus gained binding power for the whole community. ▲7 The Law of the Twelve Tables In the early republican period, matters between private individuals were settled by customary law rather than by leges. This situation only changed with the Lex XII Tabularum (Law of the Twelve Tables) (➔ Media Link #ah), which, according to tradition, was drawn up in 451–450 BC by two different committees of ten men each (decemviri legibus scribundis). The reason for this was, in the framework of the social struggle between classes, the growing complaints of the plebeians at the arbitrary application of the unwritten law by the ruling elite of patricians. This codification was preceded by direct contacts with the Greek world (including the Greek colonies in Southern Italy), where there were already important models such as the codification of Solon (ca. 640–ca. 560 BC) (➔ Media Link #ai). The Twelve Tables, the original text of which has not been preserved, regulated among other things the law of civil procedure including foreclosure, the law of inheritance, power relations, guardianship and trusteeship, property and its delimitation, obligations arising from delict, and the funeral system. ▲8 The codification of the previous customary law in a written form in the Twelve Tables rendered the misuse of power by the patricians towards the plebeians more difficult. The Twelve Tables remained the "cradle" of the law of the city of Rome, the "source of all public and private law"2 (until Justinian I) according to Titus Livius (59 BC–17 AD) (➔ Media Link #aj), and furthermore the only codification with a comprehensive claim to validity. It was on the basis of the Twelve Tables that the first legis actiones ("actions based on the law") and other legal institutions were developed; they also served as a basis for the first of all works of legal science, the Tripertita of the jurist Sextus Aelius Paetus Catus (2nd century BC) (➔ Media Link #ak), which was at the same time the first literary version of the Twelve Tables. ▲9 Jurisprudence and its Origins Within the Roman legal system, legal science (or jurisprudence) was also a recognized source of law. Having been founded by the pontifices, legal knowledge was from the beginning a prerogative of the elite. Beside the augurs and fetials, the pontiffs (pontifices) were indeed members of one of the most important Roman colleges of priests. ▲10 The legal knowledge of the pontiffs, together with their control of the calendar and therefore of the days on which, from the standpoint of religion, business might be done and lawsuits pursued, made the pontiffs themselves irreplaceable for the discussion and treatment of legal questions. Only they were in a position, not only to interpret existing norms and apply them to concrete cases, but also to create new law. Accordingly, knowledge of the formulae for lawsuits was their prerogative. Thus their collaboration was indispensable to both the magistrates and the parties for carrying out a case correctly (the principle of agere = to act, to manage a lawsuit).
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Studies in History and Jurisprudence, Vol. 2 [1901]
    The Online Library of Liberty A Project Of Liberty Fund, Inc. Viscount James Bryce, Studies in History and Jurisprudence, vol. 2 [1901] The Online Library Of Liberty This E-Book (PDF format) is published by Liberty Fund, Inc., a private, non-profit, educational foundation established in 1960 to encourage study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals. 2010 was the 50th anniversary year of the founding of Liberty Fund. It is part of the Online Library of Liberty web site http://oll.libertyfund.org, which was established in 2004 in order to further the educational goals of Liberty Fund, Inc. To find out more about the author or title, to use the site's powerful search engine, to see other titles in other formats (HTML, facsimile PDF), or to make use of the hundreds of essays, educational aids, and study guides, please visit the OLL web site. This title is also part of the Portable Library of Liberty DVD which contains over 1,000 books and quotes about liberty and power, and is available free of charge upon request. The cuneiform inscription that appears in the logo and serves as a design element in all Liberty Fund books and web sites is the earliest-known written appearance of the word “freedom” (amagi), or “liberty.” It is taken from a clay document written about 2300 B.C. in the Sumerian city-state of Lagash, in present day Iraq. To find out more about Liberty Fund, Inc., or the Online Library of Liberty Project, please contact the Director at [email protected].
    [Show full text]
  • The Law of Citations and Seriatim Opinions: Were the Ancient Romans and the Early Supreme Court on the Right Track?
    The Law of Citations and Seriatim Opinions: Were the Ancient Romans and the Early Supreme Court on the Right Track? JOSHUA M. AUSTIN* I. INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................... 19 II. THE LAW OF CITATIONS ....................................................................... 21 A. A HISTORICAL LOOK AT THE LAW OF CITATIONS ........................... 21 B. THE FIVE JURISTS............................................................................ 24 1. Gaius................................................................................. 24 2. Modestinus........................................................................ 24 3. Papinian............................................................................ 25 4. Paul................................................................................... 25 5. Ulpian ............................................................................... 26 III. SERIATIM OPINIONS.............................................................................. 26 A. THE EARLY SUPREME COURT AND SERIATIM OPINIONS ................. 26 B. THE END OF SERIATIM OPINIONS .................................................... 27 IV. ENGLAND AND THE CONTINUED PRACTICE OF SEPARATE OPINIONS .. 29 V. CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS AND HIS THOUGHTS ON MULTIPLE OPINIONS .............................................................................................. 30 VI. THE IMPORTANCE OF ADDITIONAL RATIONALES ................................ 32 A. EXAMPLES OF IMPORTANT
    [Show full text]
  • The Lex Aquilia and the Standards of Care
    ZSOLT SARKADY The Lex Aquilia and the Standards of Care In Ancient Rome the only acts recognized as criminal were „exceptional invasions of public security or of the general order of society".' As such, Roman 'criminal law' would have failed to meet the needs of any highly organized society. The Romans decided upon a „practical remedy", the laws of Delict, by which they „extended the doctrine of civil obligations", 2 to cover the realm of personal property. Violations of these standards of care carried with them „penal consequences". 3 Private law was originally dominated by the Twelve Tables, which soon became „harsh and inflexible antique rules" in cosmopolitan Rome. The „punitive vengeance" of the Twelve Tables evolved into legal sanctions to compel compensation when damage was done to private property. However, these sanctions retained a distinct „punitive character". 4 Sanctions were thus developed to protect three principal rights of the Roman citizen not originally protected by criminal law: the security of his property, his security from theft and his right to be „protected from deliberate anti-social attacks" on his dignity.' The Lex Aquilia governed loss wrongfully inflicted to property (damnum iniuria datum), whereas the Delicts of Furtum, Rapina and Iniuria were designed to deal with theft, robbery and attacks on personal dignity respectively. In order to be liable under the Lex Aquilia the defendant had to be found guilty of intent and culpable conduct (iniuria datum), and thus to have „wrongfully inflicted" loss (datum) on the plaintiff. 6 The early Romans maintained strict standards that governed personal behavior and this is reflected in the legal reasoning implicit in the lex.
    [Show full text]
  • Ordering Divine Knowledge in Late Roman Legal Discourse
    Caroline Humfress ordering.3 More particularly, I will argue that the designation and arrangement of the title-rubrics within Book XVI of the Codex Theodosianus was intended to showcase a new, imperial and Theodosian, ordering of knowledge concerning matters human and divine. König and Whitmarsh’s 2007 edited volume, Ordering Knowledge in the Roman Empire is concerned primarily with the first three centuries of the Roman empire Ordering Divine Knowledge in and does not include any extended discussion of how knowledge was ordered and structured in Roman juristic or Imperial legal texts.4 Yet if we classify the Late Roman Legal Discourse Codex Theodosianus as a specialist form of Imperial prose literature, rather than Caroline Humfress classifying it initially as a ‘lawcode’, the text fits neatly within König and Whitmarsh’s description of their project: University of St Andrews Our principal interest is in texts that follow a broadly ‘compilatory’ aesthetic, accumulating information in often enormous bulk, in ways that may look unwieldy or purely functional In the celebrated words of the Severan jurist Ulpian – echoed three hundred years to modern eyes, but which in the ancient world clearly had a much higher prestige later in the opening passages of Justinian’s Institutes – knowledge of the law entails that modern criticism has allowed them. The prevalence of this mode of composition knowledge of matters both human and divine. This essay explores how relations in the Roman world is astonishing… It is sometimes hard to avoid the impression that between the human and divine were structured and ordered in the Imperial codex accumulation of knowledge is the driving force for all of Imperial prose literature.5 of Theodosius II (438 CE).
    [Show full text]
  • The Genius of Roman Law from a Law and Economics Perspective
    THE GENIUS OF ROMAN LAW FROM A LAW AND ECONOMICS PERSPECTIVE By Juan Javier del Granado 1. What makes Roman law so admirable? 2. Asymmetric information and numerus clausus in Roman private law 2.1 Roman law of property 2.1.1 Clearly defined private domains 2.1.2 Private management of resources 2.2 Roman law of obligations 2.2.1 Private choices to co-operate 2.2.2 Private choices to co-operate without stipulating all eventualities 2.2.3 Private co-operation within extra-contractual relationships 2.2.4 Private co-operation between strangers 2.3 Roman law of commerce and finance 3. Private self-help in Roman law procedure 4. Roman legal scholarship in the restatement of civil law along the lines of law and economics 1. What makes Roman law so admirable? Law and economics aids us in understanding why Roman law is still worthy of admiration and emulation, what constitutes the “genius” of Roman law. For purposes of this paper, “Roman law” means the legal system of the Roman classical period, from about 300 B.C. to about 300 A.D. I will not attempt the tiresome job of being or trying to be a legal historian in this paper. In the manner of German pandect science, let us stipulate that I may arbitrarily choose certain parts of Roman law as being especially noteworthy to the design of an ideal private law system. This paper discusses legal scholarship from the ius commune. It will also discuss a few Greek philosophical ideas which I believe are important in the Roman legal system.
    [Show full text]
  • Römisches Recht Und Rezeption Von Lorena Atzeri
    Römisches Recht und Rezeption von Lorena Atzeri Dieser Beitrag bietet einen Überblick über den Ursprung, die Entwicklung und den Fortbestand des römischen Rechts von seinen Anfängen im 8. Jahrhundert v. Chr. bis ins 19. Jahrhundert. Das römische Recht und seine Quellen, vor allem die justinianische Kodifikation – das sogenannte Corpus Iuris Civilis –, haben die Rechtsentwicklung in Europa entscheidend geprägt und bildeten die Grundlage für viele europäische Rechtsordnungen. Untersucht wird daher auch die Rolle des römischen Rechts in der mittelalterlichen und neuzeitlichen Rechtswissenschaft. Zudem stellt dieser Beitrag die wechselseitige Beziehung des römischen mit dem kanonischen Recht und die Rezeption in vielen Ländern Europas vor. INHALTSVERZEICHNIS 1. Einleitung und Periodisierung 2. Öffentliches Recht und Privatrecht 3. Rechtsquellen in der Republik 1. Lex und mos 2. Das Zwölftafelgesetz 3. Die Jurisprudenz und ihre Ursprünge 4. Die Vielschichtigkeit der Rechtsordnung: Das Honorarrecht 4. Die römische Rechtswissenschaft 1. Ende eines Rechtsmonopols 2. Entstehung einer säkularen Jurisprudenz 3. Die Juristen in der Kaiserzeit 5. Kaisergesetze und ihre Sammlungen 1. Codex Gregorianus und Codex Hermogenianus 2. Codex Theodosianus 3. Posttheodosianische Novellen 4. Die Leges barbarorum 5. Lex Romana Visigothorum oder Breviarium Alarici 6. Lex Romana Burgundionum 7. Edictum Theoderici 6. Das Corpus Iuris Civilis Kaiser Justinians I. 1. Erster Codex 2. Digesten 3. Institutiones 4. Zweiter Codex (oder Codex Repetitae Praelectionis) 5. Novellen 7. Geltungskraft und Reichweite der Justinianischen Kompilation 8. Das römische Recht im Mittelalter 1. Die Wiederentdeckung der Digesten 2. Die Schule von Bologna: Die Glossatoren 3. Die Kommentatoren 4. Römisches Recht und kanonisches Recht 9. Das römische Recht in der Neuzeit 1. Der Einfluss des Humanismus: Mos italicus und mos gallicus 2.
    [Show full text]
  • Actio Funeraria
    Oliver Unger Actio Funeraria Oliver Unger Actio Funeraria Prinzip und Fall der verbotswidrigen Geschäftsführung ohne Auftrag Mohr Siebeck Oliver Unger, geboren 1985; Studium der Rechtswissenschaft in Freiburg, Oxford und Har- vard (LL.M.); Referendariat am Hanseatischen Oberlandesgericht Hamburg; Wissenschaftli- cher Assistent am Max-Planck-Institut für ausländisches und internationales Privatrecht in Hamburg; seit 2018 Referent im Bundesministerium der Justiz und für Verbraucherschutz. ISBN 978-3-16-155356-1 / eISBN 978-3-16-156187-0 DOI 10.1628/978-3-16-156187-0 Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen National- bibliographie; detaillierte bibliographische Daten sind über http://dnb.dnb.de abrufbar. © 2018 Mohr Siebeck Tübingen. www.mohrsiebeck.com Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlags unzulässig und strafbar. Das gilt insbesondere für die Verbreitung, Vervielfältigung, Übersetzung und die Einspeicherung und Verarbeitung in elektronischen Systemen. Das Buch wurde von Gulde Druck in Tübingen auf alterungsbeständiges Werkdruck­­papier gedruckt und gebunden. Printed in Germany. Vorwort Vorwort Vorwort Diese Arbeit wurde von der Bucerius Law School im Herbst 2016 als Disserta- tion angenommen. Die mündliche Prüfung fand am 12. Oktober 2016 statt. Entstanden ist die Arbeit während meiner Zeit als wissenschaftlicher Assistent am Max-Planck-Institut für ausländisches und internationales Privatrecht in Hamburg. Im Zeitschriftenzimmer des Instituts bin ich erstmals auf die actio funeraria gestoßen, die Magazine der Bibliothek haben sich als reichhaltiger Fundus erwiesen, von den vielen Gesprächen in den Zimmern, zwischen den Türen und auf den Terrassen des Instituts habe ich immens profitiert. Mein besonderer Dank gilt meinem Doktorvater Herrn Professor Dr.
    [Show full text]
  • On the Months (De Mensibus) (Lewiston, 2013)
    John Lydus On the Months (De mensibus) Translated with introduction and annotations by Mischa Hooker 2nd edition (2017) ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Abbreviations .......................................................................................... iv Introduction .............................................................................................. v On the Months: Book 1 ............................................................................... 1 On the Months: Book 2 ............................................................................ 17 On the Months: Book 3 ............................................................................ 33 On the Months: Book 4 January ......................................................................................... 55 February ....................................................................................... 76 March ............................................................................................. 85 April ............................................................................................ 109 May ............................................................................................. 123 June ............................................................................................ 134 July ............................................................................................. 140 August ........................................................................................ 147 September ................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Justinian's Redaction
    JUSTINIAN'S REDACTION. "Forhim there are no dry husks of doctrine; each is the vital develop- ment of a living germ. There is no single bud or fruit of it but has an ancestry of thousands of years; no topmost twig that does not greet with the sap drawn from -he dark burrows underground; no fibre torn away from it but has been twisted and strained by historic wheels. For him, the Roman law, that masterpiece of national growth, is no sealed book ..... ... but is a reservoir of doctrine, drawn from the watershed of a world's civilization!'* For to-day's student of law, what worth has the half- dozen years' activity of a few Greek-speakers by the Bos- phorus nearly fourteen centuries ago? Chancellor Kent says: "With most of the European nations, and in the new states of Spanish America, and in one of the United States, it (Roman law) constitutes the principal basis of their unwritten or common law. It exerts a very considerable influence on our own municipal law, and particularly on those branches of it which are of equity and admiralty jurisdiction, or fall within the cognizance of the surrogate or consistorial courts . It is now taught and obeyed not only in France, Spain, Germany, Holland, and Scotland, but in the islands of the Indian Ocean, and on the banks of the Mississippi and St. Lawrence. So true, it seems, are the words of d'Agnesseau, that 'the grand destinies of Rome are not yet accomplished; she reigns throughout the world by her reason, after having ceased to reign by her authority?'" And of the honored jurists whose names are carved on the stones of the Law Building of the University of Pennsyl- vania another may be cited as viewing the matter from a different standpoint.
    [Show full text]
  • The Corpus Juris Civilis
    College of William & Mary Law School William & Mary Law School Scholarship Repository Library Staff ubP lications The oW lf Law Library 2015 The orC pus Juris Civilis Frederick W. Dingledy William & Mary Law School, [email protected] Repository Citation Dingledy, Frederick W., "The orC pus Juris Civilis" (2015). Library Staff Publications. 118. https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/libpubs/118 Copyright c 2015 by the authors. This article is brought to you by the William & Mary Law School Scholarship Repository. https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/libpubs The Corpus Juris Civilis by Fred Dingledy Senior Reference Librarian College of William & Mary Law School for Law Library of Louisiana and Supreme Court of Louisiana Historical Society New Orleans, LA – November 12, 2015 What we’ll cover ’History and Components of the Corpus Juris Civilis ’Relevance of the Corpus Juris Civilis ’Researching the Corpus Juris Civilis Diocletian (r. 284-305) Theodosius II Codex Gregorianus (r. 408-450) (ca. 291) {{ Codex Theodosianus (438) Codex Hermogenianus (295) Previously… Byzantine Empire in 500 Emperor Justinian I (r. 527-565) “Arms and laws have always flourished by the reciprocal help of each other.” Tribonian 528: Justinian appoints Codex commission Imperial constitutiones I: Ecclesiastical, legal system, admin II-VIII: Private IX: Criminal X-XII: Public 529: Codex first ed. {{Codex Liber Theodora (500-548) 530: Digest commission 532: Nika (Victory) Riots Digest : Writings by jurists I: Public “Appalling II-XLVII: Private arrangement” XLVIII: Criminal --Alan XLIX: Appeals + Treasury Watson L: Municipal, specialties, definitions 533: Digest/Pandects First-year legal textbook I: Persons II: Things III: Obligations IV: Actions 533: Justinian’s Institutes 533: Reform of Byzantine legal education First year: Institutes Digest & Novels Fifth year: Codex The Novels (novellae constitutiones): { Justinian’s constitutiones 534: Codex 2nd ed.
    [Show full text]
  • Pre-Copy Edited Version of Chapter. Please Cite from the Final Version Contained In
    Pre-Copy Edited version of chapter. Please cite from the final version contained in Handler, Mares and Williams, Landmark Cases in Criminal Law (2017, Hart) The Carrier’s Case (1473) Ian Williams The Carrier’s Case1 remains an authority in certain parts of the common law world, the oldest authority cited in a recent work on Anglo-American theft law.2 James Fitzjames Stephen described the case as ‘the most curious case relating to theft’ in medieval law.3 It remains, in the words of one writer, an ‘enigma’, indeed the first enigma, in the common law of larceny.4 The medieval law of larceny was a criminal law counterpart to trespass to goods. Like its private law counterpart, it required a trespassory taking of possession of a chattel. For the taking to be trespassory, it had to be performed with force and My thanks to John Baker, Guido Rossi and David Seipp for advice and assistance in the research for this paper. The year is taken as beginning in January. 1 The Carrier’s Case; Anon v Sheriff of London (1473) YB Pasch 13 Edw IV, fo 9, pl 5; SS vol 64, 30-34. Citations will be taken from the Selden Society report, based on British Library Additional MS 37493, a manuscript associated with the early-sixteenth century lawyer Robert Chaloner. This report contains more detail than the vulgate Yearbook report. 2 S Green, Thirteen Ways to Steal a Bicycle: theft law in the information age (Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press, 2012) 11. New South Wales, for example, retains the common law of larceny, while several states in the USA have not adopted the Model Penal Code and retain a law of larceny which is at least partly common law.
    [Show full text]
  • 113 Prolegomena to Establishing Pre
    113 PROLEGOMENA TO ESTABLISHING PRE-JUSTINIANIC TEXTS by ALANWATSON (Athens, Georgia) For many years a central issue in Roman law studies has been the extent to which the substance of the law set out in Justinian's Code and Digest collected together from earlier materials has been interpolated. In this paper I seek to give an answer based primarily, but not exclusively, on the instructions given by Justinian to his compilers. Most of us who teach Roman law have derived our basic knowledge of the pur- poses of Justinian's legislation from the teachings of our professors and the read- ing of standard textbooks. Seldom does it appear necessary to read the consti- tutions establishing the teams to produce this legislation or the prefaces promulgating the legislation 1. Even less frequently do we look at these constitu- tions and prefaces together. We always have more pressing things to do. As a consequence, much that is inexact has been written - by me as well as by others - about Justinian's purposes, and the powers given to his compilers. All of us who have written about classical Roman law have in effect expressed opinions on the substantive accuracy of pre-Justinianic texts contained in the Digest or Code. The problem is that, without an understanding of the intentions behind the two Codes, Fifty Decisions, Digest and Institutes, and of the powers given to the compilers, we have no basis for our opinions on the substantive ac- curacy of the pre-Justinianian texts in the compilation. It cannot be my purpose to examine or discuss the views expressed by modern scholars on the subject - an impossible task2.
    [Show full text]