THE DIGEST OF JUSTINIAN (Digestorum ή Πανδέκτης Ιουστινιανού)

LATIN TEXT EDITED BY THEODOR MOMMSEN WITH THE AID OF PAUL KRUEGER
ENGLISH TRANSLATION EDITED BY ALAN WATSON

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The compilation of Roman law which was enacted under the Byzantine emperor, Justinian I (c. 482-5651, and which, together with that emperor’s later laws, subsequently came to be known as the Corpus Juris Civilis has been without doubt the most important and influential collection of secular legal materials that the world has ever known. The compilation preserved Roman law for succeeding generations and nations. All later Western systems b o s d extensively trom it. nut even more significantly, that strand of the Western tradition encompassing the so-called civil law systems-the law of Western continental Europe, Latin America, the parts of Africa and other continents which were former colonies of continental European powers, and to some extent Scotland, Quebec, Louisiana, Sri Lanka, and South Africa-derives its concepts, appfESK5s, ~ t r u c t u r e ~ m a rfromi thle ~ long centuries of theoretical study and putting into practice of the Corpus JurisCivilis.
Of the Corpus Juris Civilis the most important part is the Digest, the others being the Code, the Institutes, and the Novels. , . Justinian became co-emperor with his un- 527, and sole emperor when Justin died in the following year. At once he began to restate the law. He first appointed a commission to make a collection of imperial rescripts, that is, enactments or statements of the law. The rescripts were to be updated. This resulted in the first Code of 530 which has not survived because it was replaced by a revised Code in 534.
The revised Code is in twelve books divided into so-called titles (or chapters), each devoted to a particular subject, in which the rescripts are arranged chronologically.

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