Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/174

 160 //. FROM THE llOO'S TO THE 1800'S summed up the legal history of that civilisation in a series of works, which has become one of the priceless possessions of Western life. In the Digest, or Pandects, he summarised, by a ruthless process of excision and compression, the works of that famous body of Roman jurists which was the boast of the earlier Roman Empire. To this he added a Code, or collection of imperial statutes, the second edition of which has been accepted as an integral part of the Corpus Juris Civilis. These again he supplemented by an admirable little Primer of Law, or Institutes, founded on the similar treatise of a great Roman jurist, who had been dead three hundred ."^^ears when Justinian ascended the throne. Finally, he him- (Sfelf contributed upwards of a hundred " Novels," or new statutes, to the legislative activity of the Byzantine Empire. With the authority of one who still believed himself to be the world's master, he forbade all criticism of his completed work, and all reference to other sources of authority. Within the covers of the Corpus Juris would be found, he insisted, an answer to every legal difficulty which could possibly arise to vex the minds of his subjects. The work of Justinian was, in itself, a great work, and would, at all times, have commanded the respect of the world. But, owing to the special circumstances of Its fate, it achieved a success such as has not been secured by more than a dozen other books in the world's history. It became, in fact, the secular Bible of Christendom, second only in authority and influence to the Sacred Scriptures. The age which produced it was a literary age, the ages which followed it were rude and ignorant. Even in its decay, the mighty Roman Empire contrasted forcibly with the crowd of petty princedoms into which it broke up. The rude barbarian princes of Europe listened with awe to the pages which spoke to them of a civili- sation so far above their own. At first the Corpus Juris was known to them only through hasty and crude adaptations, made by the orders of the conquering chieftains of the Teu- tonic invasions ; but, gradually, as Europe settled down after the storms of the Dark Ages, the pure text was received into the homes of the new learning, and ardent students of the precious volumes carried the fame of their wisdom from the