JUSTINIAN CODE

Justinian Code (j<<schwa>>s-tin-ee-<<schwa>>n).Roman law. A collection of imperial constitutions drawn up by a commission of ten persons appointed by Justinian, and published in A.D. 529. • Ten jurists, headed by Tribonian, carried out the project beginning in February A.D. 528 and ending in April 529. It replaced all prior imperial law, but was in force only until A.D. 534, when it was supplanted by a revision, the Codex Repetitae Praelectionis. The precise contents of the first work are unknown. But the second work, containing the 12 books of the revised code, includes the imperial constitutions of the Gregorian, Hermogenian, and Theodosian Codes, together with later legislation, revised and harmonized into one systematic whole. It deals with ecclesiastical law, criminal law, administrative law, and private law. In modern writings, the A.D. 534 version is the work referred to as the Justinian Code. — Also termed Justinianean Code (j<<schwa>>s-tin-ee-an-ee-<< schwa>>n); Code of Justinian; Codex Justinianus (koh-deks j<<schwa>>s-tin-ee-ay-n<<schwa>>s); Codex Vetus (“Old Code”); Codex Iustinianus Repetitae Praelectionis.

“By the time when the Digest and Institutes had been completed it was obvious that the

Codex, published little more than four years earlier, was incomplete, since in the interval Justinian … had promulgated other new constitutions. Tribonian, therefore, was appointed to revise the Code, so as to bring it fully up to date, and at the end of the year A.D. 534 this new Code, known as the Codex Repetitae Praelectionis, was promulgated, and is the only Code which survives to the present day. Justinian seems to have laboured under the erroneous impression that the system he had framed would be adequate for all time. But as there is nothing static about law, further legislative enactments, termed Novellae Constitutiones, were issued during his reign…. In modern times Justinian’s various compilations came to be called collectively the Corpus Juris Civilis: the Corpus being regarded as a single work, made up of the Institutes, the Digest, the Codex Repetitae Praelectionis, and the Novels.” R.W. Leage, Roman Private Law 44 (C.H.

Ziegler ed., 2d ed. 1930).

[Blacks Law 8th]