Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol I).djvu/97

§. 3. titutions of ucceive emperors) had grown to o great a bulk, or, as Livy exprees it, “,” that they were computed to be many camels’ load by an author who preceded Jutinian . This was in part remedied by the collections of three private lawyers, Gregorius, Hermogenes, and Papirius; and then by the emperor Theodoius the younger, by whoe orders a code was compiled, A. D. 438, being a methodical collection of all the imperial contitutions then in force: which Theodoian code was the only book of civil law received as authentic in the wetern part of Europe till many centuries after; and to this it is probable that the Franks and Goths might frequently pay ome regard, in framing legal contitutions for their newly erected kingdoms. For Jutinian commanded only in the eatern remains of the empire; and it was under his aupices, that the preent body of civil law was compiled and finihed by Tribonian and other lawyers, about the year 533.

conits of,&ensp;1.&ensp;The intitutes, which contain the elements or firt principles of the Roman law, in four books.&ensp;2.&ensp;The digets, or pandects, in fifty books, containing the opinions and writings of eminent lawyers, digeted in a ytematical method.&ensp;3.&ensp;A new code, or collection of imperial contitutions, the lape of a whole century having rendered the former code, of Theodoius, imperfect.&ensp;4.&ensp;The novels, or new contitutions, poterior in time to the other books, and amounting to a upplement to the code; containing new decrees of ucceive emperors, as new questions happened to arie. Thee form the body of Roman law, or, as publihed about the time of Jutinian: which however fell oon into neglect and oblivion, till about the year 1130, when a copy of the digets was found at Amalfi in Italy; which accident, concurring with the policy of the Romih eccleiatics , uddenly gave new vogue and authority to the civil law, introduced it into everal nations, and occaioned that Rh