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The scholars of the 11th- and 12th-century legal schools in Italy, France and Germany are identified as glossators in a specific sense. They studied
Roman law Roman law is the legal system of ancient Rome, including the legal developments spanning over a thousand years of jurisprudence, from the Twelve Tables (c. 449 BC), to the '' Corpus Juris Civilis'' (AD 529) ordered by Eastern Roman emperor ...
based on the '' Digesta'', the ''
Codex The codex (plural codices ) was the historical ancestor of the modern book. Instead of being composed of sheets of paper, it used sheets of vellum, papyrus, or other materials. The term ''codex'' is often used for ancient manuscript books, with ...
'' of
Justinian Justinian I (; la, Iustinianus, ; grc-gre, Ἰουστινιανός ; 48214 November 565), also known as Justinian the Great, was the Byzantine emperor from 527 to 565. His reign is marked by the ambitious but only partly realized '' renov ...
, the ''Authenticum'' (an abridged Latin translation of selected constitutions of Justinian, promulgated in Greek after the enactment of the ''Codex'' and therefore called ''
Novellae In Roman law, a novel ( la, novella constitutio, "new decree"; gr, νεαρά, neara) is a new decree or edict, in other words a new law. The term was used from the fourth century AD onwards and was specifically used for laws issued after the publi ...
''), and his law manual, the '' Institutiones Iustiniani'', compiled together in the ''
Corpus Iuris Civilis The ''Corpus Juris'' (or ''Iuris'') ''Civilis'' ("Body of Civil Law") is the modern name for a collection of fundamental works in jurisprudence, issued from 529 to 534 by order of Justinian I, Byzantine Emperor. It is also sometimes referred ...
''. (This title is itself only a sixteenth-century printers' invention.) Their work transformed the inherited ancient texts into a living tradition of medieval Roman law. The glossators conducted detailed text studies that resulted in collections of explanations. For their work they used a method of study unknown to the Romans themselves, insisting that contradictions in the legal material were only apparent. They tried to harmonize the sources in the conviction that for every legal question only one binding rule exists. Thus they approached these legal sources in a
dialectic Dialectic ( grc-gre, διαλεκτική, ''dialektikḗ''; related to dialogue; german: Dialektik), also known as the dialectical method, is a discourse between two or more people holding different points of view about a subject but wishing to ...
al way, which is a characteristic of medieval
scholasticism Scholasticism was a medieval school of philosophy that employed a critical organic method of philosophical analysis predicated upon the Aristotelian 10 Categories. Christian scholasticism emerged within the monastic schools that transla ...
. They sometimes needed to invent new concepts not found in Roman law, such as
half-proof Half-proof ''(semiplena probatio)'' was a concept of medieval Roman law, describing a level of evidence between mere suspicion and the full proof (''plena probatio'') needed to convict someone of a crime. The concept was introduced by the Glossator ...
(evidence short of full proof but of some force, such as a single witness). In other medieval disciplines, for example
theology Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing t ...
and
philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. S ...
, glosses were also made on the main authoritative texts. In the
Greek language Greek ( el, label= Modern Greek, Ελληνικά, Elliniká, ; grc, Ἑλληνική, Hellēnikḗ) is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece, Cyprus, southern Italy ( Calabria and Salento), souther ...
, γλῶσσα (''glossa'') means "tongue" or "language." Originally, the word was used to denote an explanation of an unfamiliar word, but its scope gradually expanded to the more general sense of "commentary". The glossators used to write in the margins of the old texts (''glosa marginalis'') or between the lines (''glosa interlinearis'' - interlinear glosses). Later these were gathered into large collections, first copied as separate books, but also quickly written in the margins of the legal texts. The medieval copyists at
Bologna Bologna (, , ; egl, label= Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nat ...
developed a typical script to enhance the legibility of both the main text and the glosses. The typically Bolognese script is called the Littera Bononiensis.
Accursius __NOTOC__ Accursius (in Italian ''Accursio'' or ''Accorso di Bagnolo''; c. 11821263) was a Roman jurist. He is notable for his organization of the glosses, the medieval comments on Justinian's codification of Roman law, the ''Corpus Juris Civili ...
's ''
Glossa ordinaria The ''Glossa Ordinaria'', which is Latin for "Ordinary .e. in a standard formGloss", is a collection of biblical commentaries in the form of glosses. The glosses are drawn mostly from the Church Fathers, but the text was arranged by scholars dur ...
'', the final standard redaction of these glosses, contains around 100,000 glosses. Accursius worked for decades on this task. There exists no critical edition of his glosses. In the older historiography of the medieval ''learned law'', the view developed that after the standard gloss had become fixed a generation of so-called ''
commentators Commentator or commentators may refer to: * Commentator (historical) or Postglossator, a member of a European legal school that arose in France in the fourteenth century * Commentator (horse) (foaled 2001), American Thoroughbred racehorse * The ...
'' started to take over from the glossators. In fact, the early medieval legal scholars, too, wrote commentaries and lectures, but their main effort was indeed creating glosses. Most of the older glosses are accessible only in medieval manuscripts: modern editions of only a few manuscripts exist. The main microfilm collections of glossed legal manuscripts are at the Max Planck Institute for European Legal History in Frankfurt am Main, at the universities of Munich, Würzburg, Milan, Leyden and Berkeley.


People

*
Irnerius Irnerius (– after 1125), sometimes referred to as ''lucerna juris'' ("lantern of the law"), was an Italian jurist, and founder of the School of Glossators and thus of the tradition of Medieval Roman Law. He taught the newly recovered Roman l ...
* Four Doctors of Bologna **
Bulgarus Bulgarus was a twelfth-century Italian jurist, born in Bologna. He has been confused with Bulgarinus, a 15th-century jurist. He was the most celebrated of the famous Four Doctors of the law school of the University of Bologna and was regarded ...
**
Martinus Gosia Martinus Gosia was one of the glossators and a 12th-century Italian jurist, counted among the Four Doctors of Bologna, the others being Bulgarus, Hugo de Porta Ravennate and Jacobus de Boragine. Martinus Gosia and Bulgarus were the chiefs of t ...
**
Jacobus de Boragine Jacobus de Boragine was one of the Glossators, and Four Doctors of Bologna. Also known as Jacobus, he was born in the early 12th century and was an Italian lawyer, one of four students of Irnerius called the ''Quattuor Doctores'', although Sav ...
**
Hugo de Porta Ravennate Hugo de Porta Ravennate was an Italian jurist, and member of the Glossators of Bologna. He came from a noble family who had residence in the city of Bologna, but whose family name meant "the gate of Ravenna". Study and teaching at the Univer ...
*
Placentinus Placentinus (died 1192) was an Italian jurist and glossator. Originally from Piacenza, he taught at the University of Bologna. From there he founded the law school of the University of Montpellier The University of Montpellier (french: Unive ...
*
Azo of Bologna Azo of Bologna or Azzo or Azolenus ( 1150–1230) was an influential Italian jurist and a member of the school of the so-called glossators. Born circa 1150 in Bologna, Azo studied under Joannes Bassianus and became professor of civil law at Bologna ...
*
Accursius __NOTOC__ Accursius (in Italian ''Accursio'' or ''Accorso di Bagnolo''; c. 11821263) was a Roman jurist. He is notable for his organization of the glosses, the medieval comments on Justinian's codification of Roman law, the ''Corpus Juris Civili ...
*
Franciscus Accursius Franciscus Accursius ( it, Francesco d'Accorso) (1225–1293) was an Italian lawyer, the son of the celebrated jurist and glossator Accursius. The two are often confused. Born in Bologna, Franciscus was more distinguished for his tact than for ...
*
Joannes Bassianus Joannes Bassianus was an Italian jurist of the 12th century. Life Little is known of his origin, but he is said by his jurist contemporary Carolus de Tocco (Carlo di Tocco) to have been a native of Cremona. He was a professor in the law school of ...
* Tancred of Bologna * Bernard of Botone


See also

* Decretalist *
Decretist In the history of canon law, a decretist was a student and interpreter of the '' Decretum Gratiani''. Like Gratian, the decretists sought to provide "a harmony of discordant canons" (''concordia discordantium canonum''), and they worked towards thi ...
* Postglossator


References


External links


Max-Planck-Institut für europäische Rechtsgeschichte, Frankfurt am Main

Stephan Kuttner Institute for Medieval Canon Law, Munich

Robbins Collection, School of Law, Boalt Hall, University of California at Berkeley

''The Roman Law Library'' by Professor Yves Lassard and Alexandr Koptev

Glossator: Practice and Theory of the Commentary
* Gabor Hamza: Accursius és az európai jogtudomány kezdetei. /Accursius and the Beginnings of the European Jurisprudence/ Jogtudomanyi közlöny 54 /1999/ 171-175. p.
Glossators' works at ParalipomenaIuris
__NOTOC__ {{DEFAULTSORT:Glossator Legal history Roman law Medieval law Canon law history