![Page where the Lex Romana Curiensis begins in the Verona manuscript. The beginning of the text is in the middle of the right column: In nomine s[an]c[t]ae Trinitatis incipiunt capitula libri primi legis (In the name of the Holy Trinity, the chapters of the first book of the law begin...). Lex Romana Utinensis.png](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/31/Lex_Romana_Utinensis.png/170px-Lex_Romana_Utinensis.png)
The Lex Romana Curiensis ("Roman Law of Chur"), also known as the Lex Romana Raetica, [lower-alpha 1] Lex Romana Utinensis [lower-alpha 2] or Epitome Sancti Galli, [lower-alpha 3] is a Latin legal treatise of the eighth century from the region of Churraetia. [1] It was not a law code in force, but a handbook for use in legal education. [2] Nonetheless, it may be the basis of the Raetian lex et consuetudo (law and custom) that Charlemagne confirmed in the early 770s. [3]
The Lex Romana Curiensis is an epitomization of the Breviary of Alaric (506). It is divided into 27 books. It does not treat all the material in the Breviary, perhaps because its source was itself an epitomized version. It does not contain sections on some of the so-called Sentences of Paul , the Codex Gregorianus, the Codex Hermogenianus or the Responsa of Papinian. [2] The differences between the Lex and the Breviary stem not from the rhetorical choices of the creator of the former, but from the deficiencies in his legal education. He did not fully understand Roman law. The Lex is therefore usually presented as an example of customary West Roman vulgar law committed to writing. [4]
For example, the Lex cites the Roman Law of Citations of 426, but whereas the original law says that judges should follow the majority interpretation of the law and where there was none that of Papinian, the redactor of the Lex says that he who brings the most oath-helpers to court wins and that ties should be decided in favour of whoever could cite the Lex Papianus, that is, the Lex Romana Burgundionum . [5] In other places, the text bears marks of Germanic legal influence. [1]
The date and place of composition of the Lex Romana Curiensis are disputed, although most scholars today favour an eighth-century origin in Churraetia. Earlier scholars placed its composition anywhere between the middle of the eighth century and the middle of the ninth and anywhere from Churraetia to Lombardy, Istria or southern Germany. [1] According to Paul Vinogradoff, it "is a statement of legal custom, drawn up for the Romance population of Eastern Switzerland, and used in the Tyrol and Northern Italy as well." [6] Modern scholars favour an early eighth-century date. [2] [4] The Croatian historian Lujo Margetić claims it was produced under Charlemagne around 803 as a "legal handbook" for the lands of the former Avar Khaganate. [7]
The Lex Romana Curiensis is preserved in full in three manuscripts as well as two fragments. [2] Two of the manuscripts were made in Churraetia and are now in the archives of Pfäfers Abbey and the Abbey of Saint Gall. [lower-alpha 4] The other is originally from Verona, [lower-alpha 5] although it was kept for a long time first at Aquileia and later at Udine, whence it was taken by Gustav Friedrich Hänel to Germany in the nineteenth century. Since then it has resided in Leipzig. [8] The copying of the Veronese manuscript has been associated with the reign of Lambert in Italy. [9] The two fragmentary texts [lower-alpha 6] are both from Milan. [4]
The editio princeps (first edition) of the Lex Romana Curiensis was published by Paolo Canciani in 1789 from the Verona manuscript. Since the work did not have a title in the manuscript, he gave it the name Lex Romana by which it has been known ever since. He classified it among the leges barbarorum (laws of the barbarians). [10]
The Corpus JurisCivilis is the modern name for a collection of fundamental works in jurisprudence, issued from 529 to 534 by order of Byzantine Emperor Justinian I. It is also sometimes referred to metonymically after one of its parts, the Code of Justinian.
The Breviary of Alaric is a collection of Roman law, compiled by Roman jurists and issued by referendary Anianus on the order of Alaric II, King of the Visigoths, with the approval of his bishops and nobles. It was promulgated on 2 February 506, the 22nd year of his reign. It applied, not to the Visigothic nobles who lived under their own law, which had been formulated by Euric, but to the Hispano-Roman and Gallo-Roman population, living under Visigoth rule south of the Loire and, in Book 16, to the members of the trinitarian Catholic Church; the Visigoths were Arian and maintained their own clergy.
The Visigothic Code, also called Lex Visigothorum, is a set of laws first promulgated by king Chindasuinth of the Visigothic Kingdom in his second year of rule (642–643) that survives only in fragments. In 654 his son, king Recceswinth (649–672), published the enlarged law code, which was the first law code that applied equally to the conquering Goths and the general population, of which the majority had Roman roots, and had lived under Roman laws.
The Digest, also known as the Pandects, was a compendium or digest of juristic writings on Roman law compiled by order of the Byzantine emperor Justinian I in 530–533 AD. It is divided into 50 books.
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The Codex Euricianus or Code of Euric was a collection of laws governing the Visigoths compiled at the order of Euric, King of the Visigoths, sometime before 480, probably at Toulouse ; it is one of the earliest examples of early Germanic law. The compilation itself was the work of Leo, a Roman lawyer and principal counsellor of the king. The customs of the Visigothic nation were recognised and affirmed. The Code is largely confused and it appears that it was merely a recollection of Gothic custom altered by Roman law.
An antiphonary or antiphonal is one of the liturgical books intended for use in choro, and originally characterized, as its name implies, by the assignment to it principally of the antiphons used in various parts of the Latin liturgical rites.
The Aquileian Rite was a particular liturgical tradition of the Patriarchate of Aquileia and hence called the ritus patriarchinus. It was effectively replaced by the Roman Rite by the beginning of the seventeenth century, although elements of it survived in St. Mark's Basilica in Venice until 1807.
The Lex Burgundionum refers to the law code of the Burgundians, probably issued by king Gundobad. It is influenced by Roman law and deals with domestic laws concerning marriage and inheritance as well as regulating weregild and other penalties. Interaction between Burgundians is treated separately from interaction between Burgundians and Gallo-Romans. The oldest of the 14 surviving manuscripts of the text dates to the 9th century, but the code's institution is ascribed to king Gundobad, with a possible revision by his successor Sigismund. The Lex Romana Burgundionum is a separate code, containing various laws taken from Roman sources, probably intended to apply to the Burgundians' Gallo-Roman subjects. The oldest copy of this text dates to the 7th century.
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The Codex Hermogenianus is the title of a collection of constitutions of the Roman emperors of the first tetrarchy, mostly from the years 293–94. Most of the work is now lost. The work became a standard reference in late antiquity, until it was superseded by the Breviary of Alaric and the Codex Justinianeus.
The Romansh people are a Romance ethnic group, the speakers of the Romansh language, native to the Swiss canton of Grisons (Graubünden).
Law code of Vinodol or Vinodol statute is one of the oldest law texts written in the Chakavian dialect of Croatian and is among the oldest Slavic codes. It was written in the Glagolitic alphabet. It was originally compiled in 1288 by a commission of 42 members in Novi Vinodolski, a town on the Adriatic Sea coast in Croatia, located south of Crikvenica, Selce and Bribir and north of Senj. However, the code itself is preserved in a 16th-century copy.
Germanic law is a scholarly term used to describe a series of commonalities between the various law codes of the early Germanic peoples. These were compared with statements in Tacitus and Caesar as well as with high and late medieval law codes from Germany and Scandinavia. Until the 1950s, these commonalities were held to be the result of a distinct Germanic legal culture. Scholarship since then has questioned this premise and argued that many "Germanic" features instead derive from provincial Roman law. Although most scholars no longer hold that Germanic law was a distinct legal system, some still argue for the retention of the term and for the potential that some aspects of the Leges in particular derive from a Germanic culture. Scholarly consensus as of 2023 is that Germanic law is best understood in opposition to Roman law, in that it was not "learned" and incorporated regional pecularities.
The Institutes is a beginners' textbook on Roman private law written around 161 CE by the classical Roman jurist Gaius. The Institutes are considered to be "by far the most influential elementary-systematic presentation of Roman private law in late antiquity, the Middle Ages and modern times". The content of the textbook was considered to be lost until 1816, when a manuscript of it − probably of the 5th century − was discovered.
The Asega-bôk, English: "Book of the Judges", was part of the legal code for the Rustringian Frisians. The oldest known manuscript version, the First Riustring Manuscript is, besides the oldest extant text in Frisian, one of the oldest remaining continental codes of Germanic law.
Raetia Curiensis was an early medieval province in Central Europe, named after the preceding Roman province of Raetia prima which retained its Romansh culture during the Migration Period, while the adjacent territories in the north were largely settled by Alemannic tribes. The administrative capital was Chur in the present Swiss canton of Grisons.
Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS lat. 4404 is a medieval manuscript from the 9th century containing, among other legal texts, the Breviary of Alaric, and is notable also for containing illustrations of rulers.
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Ewa ad Amorem, traditionally known as the Lex Francorum Chamavorum, is a 9th-century law code from the Carolingian Empire. It is generally counted among the leges barbarorum, but it was not a national law. It applied only to a certain region in the Low Countries, although exactly where is disputed. Its association with the Chamavi is a modern conjecture.
