Epilogue
Language excepted, it would seem difficult to distinguish Roman from Byzantine law. In the fourteenth century a Byzantine student would still learn his secular law from Theophilusface=Arial>’ Paraphrasis and consult Harmenopoulos’ Hexabiblos.
The former translates and explains Justinian’s Institutes; the latter is a compilation drawn from various Byzantine compilations, the great majority of them ultimately going back to Justinian’s legislation. There can be no doubt that Byzantine law was Roman law - and was to remain Roman even after the fall of Constantinople.But Byzantine law is, of course, not just Roman law. As the present writer is all too painfully aware, to sketch Byzantine law as a species of Roman law is grossly unfair to legal historians of Byzantium who study Byzantine law for its own sake and not from the perspective of a Romanist.55 For modern students of Roman law the distance in time between them and Justinian has now stretched to almost 1500 years. Modern Romanists may not be much interested in Byzantine legal practice, but they will still find it worth their while to pursue a humanist agenda.56 In doing so they are studying not Byzantine law, but Roman law through exploiting Byzantine sources.
Our knowledge of Byzantine law has increased immensely since the humanists and is still increasing. Well-known texts have received modern critical editions, and hitherto unknown texts their editio princeps.57 Nowadays editions are accompanied by a translation into an ‘accessible’ language. For a fairly recent development we have to thank our colleagues in the sciences: through modern multispectral photography and enhancement of digital images it has become possible to read the lower layer of palimpsest manuscripts with greater success than in the past.
It is not an exaggeration to say that legal historians especially are profiting from these possibilities. Few texts become as definitively obsolete as legal texts when new legislation is issued. All Romanists are familiar with the example of Gaius’ Institutes, of which only a palimpsest has reached us. That text was of course superseded by Justinian’s Institutes and therefore no longer copied. Byzantine legal texts are no exception. They too are frequently found buried in the cancelled layers of manuscripts, reused for texts that were apparently considered more interesting. Occasionally the legal historian will now be able to make a journey back in time. More than once the destination will turn out to be Justinian.58Notes
1. See the chapters by Mayali, 374—95; Helmholz, 396—422; and Zimmermann, 452—80.
2. Cf the chapter by Kaiser, 119—48; and Section 5, this chapter.
3. Kaiser, Section 2; and Section 3, this chapter.
4. lang=EN-US>See, esp., Section 3, this chapter.
5. B. H. Stolte, ‘Is Byzantine Law Roman Law?’, Acta ByzantinaFennica 2 (n.s.) (2003—4): ill—16; B.H. Stolte, ‘The Byzantine Law of Obligations’, in Obligations in Roman Law. Past, Present and Future, ed. by T.
A.J. McGinn (Ann Arbor, 2012), 320—33.6. H.J. Scheltema, L'enseignement de droit des antecesseurs (Leiden, 1970), repr. in his Opera minora ad iuris historiam pertinentia, ed. N. van der Wal et al. (Groningen, 2004), 58-110.
7. It is worth remembering that the original meaning of this word is ‘what is written beside [the text]’: many of these explanations were first given literally ‘beside’ — that is, in the margin - of the text.
8. See also W. Kaiser, Die Epitome luliani. Beiträge zum römischen Recht im frühen Mittelater und zum byzantinischen Rechtsunterricht (Frankfurt, 2004): note the significant subtitle.
9. N. van der Wal andJ.H.A. Lokin, Delineatio iuris graeci-romani. Les sources du droit byzantin de 300 a 1453 (Groningen, 1985); S.N. Troianos, Oi peges tou buzantinou dikaiou, 3rd augmented ed. (Athens — Komotini, 2011).
10. B. H. Stolte, ‘Justice: Legal Literature’, in The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies, ed. E. Jeffreys et al. (Oxford, 2008), 691—8.
11. P.E. Pieler, ‘Byzantinische Rechtsliteratur’, in Die hochsprachliche profane Literatur der Byzantiner, vol. 2, ed. H. Hunger (Munich, I978), 34I—480.
12. Scheltema (n. 6), 1: ‘Presque tous ces ouvrages... sont des mosaiques formees par ces textes arranges sans cesse dans de nouvelles combinaisons.’
13. Theophili Antecessoris Paraphrasis Institutionum, ed. J. H. A. Lokin et al., with translation by A. F. Murison (Groningen, 20I0).
14.size=1 face="Times New Roman"> This re-orientation in relation to the Justinianic period is connected with a cultural revival known as the ‘Macedonian Renaissance’: for a brief introduction from a legal perspective, P.
E. Pieler, ‘Anakatharsis ton palaion nomon und makedonische Renaissance’, Subseciva Groningana 3 (1995): 61—78.15. Basilicorum libri LX. Series A: Textus (8 vols.); Series B: Scholia (9 vols.), ed. H.J. Scheltema et al. (Groningen — The Hague, 1953—88). See Subseciva Groningana 3 (I995) for the Proceedings of the Symposium on the occasion of the Completion of a New Edition of the Basilica, Groningen, I—4 June, I988.
16. N. van der Wal, ‘Die Schreibweise der dem Lateinischen entlehnten Fachworten in der frühbyzantinischen Juristensprache’, Scriptorium 37 (1983): 29—53; L. Burgmann, ‘Lexeis rhomaikai. Lateinische Wörter in byzantinischen Rechtstexten’, in Lexicographica byzantina, ed. W. Hörandner and E. Trapp (Vienna, 1991), 61—79; Theophilus (n. 13), Prolegomena, xxiii—xxvi; Indices, esp. XII: Latin words and expressions, 996—1028.
17. Theophilus (n. 13), Prolegomena, xlix.
18. Forall this see R. Browning, Medieval and Modern Greek, 2nd edn. (Cambridge, 1983), who, however, does not deal with the phenomenon of ‘legal’ Greek.
19. See, e.g., P. Sarris, Economy and Society in the Age of Justinian (Cambridge, 2006).
20. SeeJ. Beaucamp, ‘L’histoire du droit byzantin face a la papyrologie juridique. Bilan et perspectives’, Fontes Minores II (2005): 5—55.
21. D. Simon, Rechtsfindung am byzantinischen Reichsgericht (Frankfurt, 1973) paints a picture of the quality of the practice of the court which is in my view somewhat too negative.
22. Syntagma ton theion kai hieron kanonon, ed.
G. A. Rhalles and M. Potles, 6 vols. (Athens, 1852-9), esp. vols. 1-4.23. lang=EN-US>See, e.g.,E. Papagianni, ‘Untemoindelarealitejuridiquebyzantine:lajurisprudence patriarcale au XlVe siecle’, Fontes Minores 11 (2005): 213—27.
24. Archives de l'Athos, ed. P. Lemerle et al., a series arranged by monastery (Paris, 1937—).
25. Demetrii Chomateni Ponemata diaphora, ed. G. Prinzing (Berlin — New York, 2002).
26. Ecloga. Das Gesetzbuch Leons III. und Konstantinos' V, ed. L. Burgmann (Frankfurt, 1983).
27. For orientation and editions, see van der Wal and Lokin (n. 9), 72—6; Troianos (n. 9), I60—79.
28. L. Burgmann and S. Troianos, ‘Nomos Mosaikos’, Fontes Minores 3 (I979): I26—67.
29. L. Burgmann and S. Troianos, ‘Appendix Eclogae’, Fontes Minores 3 (I979): 24—I25.
30. K.E. Zachariä von Lingenthal, Geschichte des griechisch-römischen Rechts, 3rd edn. (I892, repr. Aalen, I955).
31. A. Kazhdan, ‘Do we need a new history of Byzantine law?’, Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik 39 (1989): 1—28; L. Burgmann, ‘Ansinnen an byzantinische Rechtshistoriker.
II: ‘Do we need a new history of Byzantine law?’, Rechtshistorisches Journal I0 (I99I): I98—200; B. H. Stolte, ‘Not new but novel. Notes on the historiography of Byzantine law’, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 22 (I998): 264—79; cf. also B. H. Stolte, ‘Balancing Byzantine Law’, Fontes Minores II (2005): 74—5.32.size=1 face="Times New Roman"> See also Section 4, this chapter; and esp. M. T. Fögen, ‘Gesetz und Gesetzgebung in Byzanz. Versuch einer Funktionsanalyse’, Ius Commune I4 (I987): I37—58.
33. See now L. Burgmann, ‘Reformation oder Restauration? Zum Ehegüterrecht der Ecloga’, in Eherecht und Familiengut in Antike und Mittelalter, ed. D. Simon (Munich, I992), 29—42.
34. D. Simon, ‘Das Ehegüterrecht der Pira. Ein systematischer Versuch’, Fontes Minores 7 (I986): I93—238.
35. Zachariä (n. 30), 277.
36. See, e.g., the article on feudalism inthe Oxford Dictionaryof Byzantium (Oxford, 1991).
37. S. N. Troianos, ‘Von der Hexabiblos zu den Basiliken’, Subseciva Groningana 3 (I989): I27.
38. Here I generally follow D. Obolensky, The Byzantine Commonwealth. Eastern Europe 500-1453 (London, 1971), ch. 10, ‘Religion and Law’, 377—415, esp. 404—15. Cf. also Burgmann (n. 26), 25, pointing out that, insofar as missionaries were sent from Byzantium to the Slav countries, they understandably also adopted Byzantine ecclesiastical law. For bibliography, L. Burgmann and H. Kaufhold, Bibliographie zur Rezeption des byzantinischen Rechts im alten Rußland sowie zur Geschichte des armenischen und georgischen Rechts (Frankfurt, 1992).
39. Obolensky (n. 38), 405.
40. The details cannot detain us here. See, e.g., P. Angelini, ‘The Code of Dusan 1349-1354’, TR 80 (2012): 84.
41. The Fetha Nagast. The Law of the Kings, trans. from the Ge’ez by Abba Paulos Tzadua and ed. by P. L. Strauss, 2nd edn. (Durham, North Carolina, 2009), with an excellent introduction by Tzadua (xxxvii-xxxviii, plus bibliography), and by P. H. Sand (‘Roman origins of the Ethiopian “Law of the Kings” [Fetha Nagast]’, xxxix-l).
42. Tzadua in Tzadua-Strauss (n. 41), xxxviii.
43. Sand in Tzadua-Strauss (n. 41), esp. xlv-xvii, with bibliography.
44. Sand in Tzadua-Strauss (n. 41), xlvii-xviii.
45. L. Wenger, Die Quellen des römischen Rechts (Vienna, 1953) 318, quoted in translation by Sand in Tzadua-Strauss (n. 41), xlix.
46. B. Jokisch, Islamic Imperial Law. Harun-Al-Rashid's Codification Project (Berlin - New York, 2007). For a convenient summary of the main thrust of this sizeable work, see the review by R. Zimmermann, Zeitschriftfür europäisches Privatrecht 16 (2008): 655-6.
47. Burgmann (n. 26), 24-7; Die arabische Ecloga. Das vierte Buch der Kanones der Könige aus der Sammlung des Makarios, ed. S. Leder (Frankfurt, 1985), with a valuable introduction; Die slavische Ecloga, ed. J. N. Ssapov and L. Burgmann (Frankfurt, 2011).
48. Burgmann (n. 26), 23-4.
49. Even that did not mean the end: Byzantine law can still be invoked on the Holy Mountain, Mount Athos.
50. For a full introduction, see H. E. Troje, Graeca leguntur. Die Aneignung des byzantinischen Rechts und die Entstehung eines humanistischen Corpus iuris civilis in der Jurisprudenz des 16. Jahrhunderts (Cologne - Vienna, 1971).
51. Ton Basilikon biblia LX, ed. C.A. Fabrot, 7 vols. (Paris, 1647).
52. Basilicorum libri LX, ed. C. G. E. Heimbach et al., 6 vols. and 2 suppls. (Leipzig, 1833-97).
53. N. 15, this chapter.
54. Theophilus (n. 13); on humanist and later editions see xxxvii-xliii.
55. For a mostly different emphasis see, e.g., the series Fontes Minores, 11 vols. to date (Frankfurt, 1976-).
56. B. H. Stolte, ‘The Value of the Byzantine Tradition for Textual Criticism of the Corpus Iuris Civilis. ‘Graeca leguntur’, Introduzione al diritto bizantino, ed. J.H.A. Lokin and B.H. Stolte (Pavia, 2011), 667-80, with examples of the value of Theophilus’ Greek Paraphrasis Institutionum for establishing the text of Justinian’s Institutes. Kaiser, 128-30 gives an example for establishing the text of the Digest.
57. For advances made in the last decades see B. H. Stolte (n. 31), 61-5.
58. For a recent example see J. Gruskova and B.H. Stolte, ‘Zwei neue BasilikenHandschriften in der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek. I: Paläographisch- kodikologische Analyse; II: Rechtshistorische Analyse. Mit 30 Tafeln’, Quellen zur byzantinischen Rechtspraxis. Aspekte der Textüberlieferung, Paläographie und Diplomatik. Akten des internationalen Symposiums Wien, 5.—7.11. 2007, ed. C. Gastgeber (Vienna, 2010), 107-82.
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