lately published. The chief portion relates to family law, marriage, dowry, guardianship, slaves, and inheritance, but obligations and procedure are also included. It is supposed to have been compiled for practical use in suits before the bishops and minor ecclesiastics. Differences between the law prevailing in the East and that in the West are sometimes mentioned, e.g. that in the former the husband's marriage gift was only half the value of the wife's dowry. Other differences from the regular Roman Law of the time are the requirement of a written contract for marriage, the recognition of the possession (as in the Gospels) of wives and slaves by demons, punishment of a receiver of others' slaves or serfs by making him a slave or serf, prescription of 30 years for suits for debts, prohibition of purchase by creditor from debtor until the debt is paid, allowance of marriage with wife's sister or brother's widow if dispensation be obtained from the king, many peculiarities in intestate inheritance, privileges, and endowments for the clergy, etc.
Justinian succeeded his uncle Justin in 527 and at once took up the task partially performed by Theodosius, and succeeded in completing it in a more thorough manner than might have been expected from the speed with which it was done. In 528 he appointed a commission of ten, eight being high officials and two practising lawyers, with instructions to put together the imperial constitutions contained in the books of Gregorius, Hermogenianus, and Theodosius, and constitutions issued subsequently, to strike out or change what was obsolete or unnecessary or contradictory, and to arrange the constitutions retained and amended under suitable heads in order of time, so as to make one book, to be called by the Emperor's name, Codex Justinianus. The book compiled by the commission was sanctioned by the Emperor in 529, and it was ordered that no constitution should be quoted in the law courts except those contained in this book, and that no other wording should be recognized than as given there.
The next step was to deal with the mass of text-books and other legal literature, so far as it had been recognised by the courts and by the custom of old and new Rome. In 530 Tribonian, one of the members of the former commission for the code, was directed to choose the most suitable professors and practising lawyers, and with their aid in the imperial palace under his own superintendence to digest the mass of law outside the constitution into one whole, divided into fifty books and subordinate titles. All the authors were to be regarded as of equal rank: full power was given to strike out and amend as in the case of the constitutions: the text given in this book was to be the only authoritative one: it was to be written without any abbreviations; and, while translation into Greek was allowed, no one was to write commentaries on it. This work, never attempted before and truly described by Justinian as enormously difficult, was "with the divine assistance" completed in
