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The ''Codex Gregorianus'' (Eng. Gregorian Code) is the title of a collection of
constitutions A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organization or other type of entity, and commonly determines how that entity is to be governed. When these princ ...
(legal pronouncements) of Roman emperors over a century and a half from the 130s to 290s AD. It is believed to have been produced around 291–294 but the exact date is unknown."Codex Gregorianus" in ''
The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium The ''Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium'' (ODB) is a three-volume historical dictionary published by the English Oxford University Press. With more than 5,000 entries, it contains comprehensive information in English on topics relating to the Byzan ...
'',
Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...
, New York & Oxford, 1991, p. 474.


History

The Codex takes its name from its author, a certain Gregorius (or Gregorianus), about whom nothing is known for certain, though it has been suggested that he acted as the ''magister libellorum'' (drafter of responses to petitions) to the emperors
Carinus Marcus Aurelius Carinus (died 285) was Roman Emperor from 283 to 285. The eldest son of the Emperor Carus, he was first appointed '' Caesar'' in late 282, then given the title of ''Augustus'' in early 283, and made co-emperor of the western p ...
and
Diocletian Diocletian ( ; ; ; 242/245 – 311/312), nicknamed Jovius, was Roman emperor from 284 until his abdication in 305. He was born Diocles to a family of low status in the Roman province of Dalmatia (Roman province), Dalmatia. As with other Illyri ...
in the 280s and early 290s. The work does not survive intact and much about its original form remains obscure, though from the surviving references and excerpts it is clear that it was a multi-book work, subdivided into thematic headings (''tituli'') that contained a mixture of
rescript A rescript is a public government document. More formally, it is a document issued not on the initiative of the author, but in response to a question (usually legal) posed to the author. The word originates from replies issued by Roman emperors t ...
s to private petitioners, letters to officials, and public edicts, organised chronologically. Scholars' estimates as to the number of books vary from 14 to 16, with the majority favouring 15. Where evidence of the mode of original publication is preserved, it is overwhelmingly to posting up, suggesting that Gregorius was working with material in the public domain.


Reception

In the fourth and fifth centuries, for those wishing to cite imperial constitutions, the ''Codex Gregorianus'' became a standard work of reference, often cited alongside the '' Codex Hermogenianus''. The earliest explicit quotations are by the anonymous author of the ''Mosaicarum et Romanarum Legum Collatio'', or ''Lex Dei'' as it is sometimes known, probably in the 390s. In the early fifth century
Augustine of Hippo Augustine of Hippo ( , ; ; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430) was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Africa. His writings deeply influenced the development of Western philosop ...
cites the Gregorian Code in discussion of adulterous marriages. Most famously, the Gregorian and Hermogenian Codes are cited as a model for the organisation of imperial constitutions since
Constantine I Constantine I (27 February 27222 May 337), also known as Constantine the Great, was a Roman emperor from AD 306 to 337 and the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity. He played a Constantine the Great and Christianity, pivotal ro ...
in the directive ordering their collection in what was to become the ''
Codex Theodosianus The ''Codex Theodosianus'' ("Theodosian Code") is a compilation of the laws of the Roman Empire under the Christian emperors since 312. A commission was established by Emperor Theodosius II and his co-emperor Valentinian III on 26 March 429 an ...
'', addressed to the senate of Constantinople on 26 March 429, and drafted by
Theodosius II Theodosius II ( ; 10 April 401 – 28 July 450), called "the Calligraphy, Calligrapher", was Roman emperor from 402 to 450. He was proclaimed ''Augustus (title), Augustus'' as an infant and ruled as the Eastern Empire's sole emperor after the ...
's ''quaestor'' Antiochus Chuzon. In the post-Theodosian era both Codes are quoted as sources of imperial constitutions by the mid-fifth-century anonymous author of the ''Consultatio veteris cuiusdam iurisconsulti'' (probably based in Gaul); are cited in marginal cross-references by a user of the '' Fragmenta Vaticana''; and in notes from an eastern law school lecture course on Ulpian's ''Ad Sabinum''. In the Justinianic era, the ''antecessor'' (law professor) Thalelaeus cited the Gregorian Code in his commentary on ''
Codex Justinianus The Code of Justinian (, or ) is one part of the ''Corpus Juris Civilis'', the codification of Roman law ordered early in the 6th century AD by Justinian I, who was Eastern Roman emperor in Constantinople. Two other units, the Digest and the I ...
''. In the west, some time before 506, both codices were supplemented by a set of clarificatory notes (''interpretationes''), which accompany their abridged versions in the
Breviary of Alaric The ''Breviary of Alaric'' (''Breviarium Alaricianum'' or ''Lex Romana Visigothorum'') is a collection of Roman law, compiled by Roman jurists and issued by referendary Anianus (referendary), Anianus on the order of Alaric II, Visigothic King ...
, and were cited as sources in the ''Lex Romana Burgundionum'' attributed to
Gundobad Gundobad (; ; 452 – 516) was King of the Burgundians (473–516), succeeding his father Gundioc of Burgundy. Previous to this, he had been a patrician of the moribund Western Roman Empire in 472–473, three years before its collapse, suc ...
, king of the Burgundians (473–516).


Eclipse

Texts drawn from the ''Codex Gregorianus'' achieved status as authoritative sources of law simultaneously with the original work's deliberate eclipse by two codification initiatives of the sixth century. First, the abridged version incorporated in the
Breviary of Alaric The ''Breviary of Alaric'' (''Breviarium Alaricianum'' or ''Lex Romana Visigothorum'') is a collection of Roman law, compiled by Roman jurists and issued by referendary Anianus (referendary), Anianus on the order of Alaric II, Visigothic King ...
, promulgated in 506, explicitly superseded the original full text throughout Visigothic Gaul and Spain. Then, as part of the emperor
Justinian Justinian I (, ; 48214 November 565), also known as Justinian the Great, was Roman emperor from 527 to 565. His reign was marked by the ambitious but only partly realized ''renovatio imperii'', or "restoration of the Empire". This ambition was ...
's grand codification programme, it formed a major component of the Codex Justinianeus, which came into force in its first edition across the Roman Balkans and eastern provinces in AD 529. This was subsequently rolled out to Latin north Africa, following its reconquest from the Vandals in 530, and then Italy in 554. So, by the mid sixth century the original text of the Gregorian Code had been consigned to the dustbin of history over most of the Mediterranean world. Only in Merovingian and Frankish Gaul were copies of the full version still exploited between the sixth and ninth centuries, as attested by the appendices to manuscripts of the ''Breviary''.


Legacy

It is because of its exploitation for the ''Codex Justinianeus'' that the influence of Gregorius' work is still felt today. As such, it formed part of the
Corpus Juris Civilis The ''Corpus Juris'' (or ''Iuris'') ''Civilis'' ("Body of Civil Law") is the modern name for a collection of fundamental works in jurisprudence, enacted from 529 to 534 by order of Byzantine Emperor Justinian I. It is also sometimes referred ...
of the revived medieval and early modern Roman law tradition. This in turn was the model and inspiration for the civil law codes that have dominated European systems since the Code Napoleon of 1804.


Editions

There has been no attempt at a full reconstruction of all the surviving texts that probably derive from the ''CG'', partly because of the difficulty of distinguishing with absolute certainty constitutions of Gregorius from those of Hermogenian in the ''Codex Justinianeus'' in the years of the mid 290s, where they appear to overlap. Tony Honoré (1994) provides the full text of all the private rescripts of the relevant period but in a single chronological sequence, not according to their possible location in the ''CG''. The fullest edition of ''CG'' remains that of Haenel (1837: 1–56), though he included only texts explicitly attributed to ''CG'' by ancient authorities and so did not cite the ''CJ'' material, on the grounds that it was only implicitly attributed. Krueger (1890) edited the Visigothic abridgement of ''CG'', with its accompanying ''interpretationes'' (pp. 224–33), and provided a reconstruction of the structure of the ''CG'', again excluding ''CJ'' material (pp. 236–42), inserting the full text only where it did not otherwise appear in the ''Collectio iuris Romani Anteiustiniani''. Rotondi (1922: 154–58), Scherillo (1934), and Sperandio (2005: 389–95) provide only an outline list of the titles, though the latter offers a useful concordance with Lenel's edition of the ''Edictum Perpetuum''. Karampoula (2008) conflates the reconstructions of Krueger (1890) and Rotondi (1922) but provides text (including Visigothic ''interpretationes'') in a modern Greek version.


Rediscovery

On 26 January 2010, Simon Corcoran and Benet Salway at University College London announced that they had discovered seventeen fragments of what they believed to be the original version of the code.


See also

*
List of Roman laws This is a partial list of Roman laws. A Roman law () is usually named for the sponsoring legislator and designated by the adjectival form of his ''gens'' name ('' nomen gentilicum''), in the feminine form because the noun ''lex'' (plural ''leges'' ...


Notes


Bibliography

* * * , cols 1–80 * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Gregorianus Roman law 290s in the Roman Empire 3rd-century books in Latin Roman law codes