Page:Bury J B The Cambridge Medieval History Vol 2 1913.djvu/90

62 procedure. About forty deal with the law of the family and of succession to property on death. Some are careful consolidations of the law on one subject, some are of miscellaneous content. These constitutions with a few issued by his near successors are called Novellae, and as being the latest legislation supersede or amend some parts of the Digest, Code, and Institutes, which with them form the Corpus Juris as received by European nations. Almost all are written in Greek, whereas very little Greek occurs in the Digest (chiefly in extracts from the third-century lawyer, Modestinus) and not much relatively in the Code. An old Latin Version of many of the Novels, probably prepared in Justinian's lifetime, is often quoted by old lawyers under the name of Authenticum. It is a significant fact that only eighteen of the Novels, and those almost wholly administrative, are dated after the year of Tribonian's death (546), though Justinian survived him nearly twenty years. One may be sure that it was Tribonian who suggested and organised this great reform of the law, though no doubt it owed much also to the good sense and persistence of the Emperor.

It would not be practicable to give anything like an adequate summary of Justinian's law books within the limits which can be assigned to it in a general history. His own Institutes contain an authoritative and readable account, which however on some matters, especially marriage and inheritance, requires correction from the Novels. But summary information may be given here on such topics as the position of slaves, freedmen, and serfs; of the power of the head of a family; of marriage, divorce, and succession to property; of some leading principles of contract, of criminal law, and of procedure.

In Rome the household comprised as well as freemen, and slaves gave occasion to a great deal of legal subtlety. Theoretically they were only live chattels, without property or legal rights, absolutely at the disposal of their owner, who had full power of life and death over them. But at all periods, more or less largely, theory was modified in practice, partly by natural feeling towards members of the same household, partly by public opinion. Antoninus Pius, either from policy or philosophic pity, so far interfered between master and slave as to make it a criminal offence for a master to kill his own slave without cause, and he required one who treated his slave with intolerable cruelty to sell him on fair terms. Constantine (319) went still further and directed any master who intentionally killed his slave with a club or stone or weapon or threw him to wild beasts or poisoned or burnt him to death to be charged with homicide. But discipline was not to suffer, and therefore