Brachylogus are pithy and concise, even to a fault. Often the exposition is well adapted to the purposes of an elementary text-book,[1] which was meant to be supplemented by oral instruction. On the whole, the work shows that the author is no longer encumbered by the mass or by the advanced character of his sources. He restates their substance intelligently, and thinks for himself. He is no compiler, and his work has reached the rank of a treatise.
The merits of the Brachylogus as an elementary textbook are surpassed by those of the so-called Summa Codicis Irnerii, a book which may mark the beginning of the Bologna school of law, and may even be the composition of its founder. Many arguments are adduced for this authorship.[2] The book has otherwise been deemed a production of the last days of the school of law at Rome just before the school was broken up by some catastrophe as to which there is little information. In that case the work would belong to the closing years of the eleventh century, whereas the authorship of Irnerius would bring it to the beginning of the twelfth. At all events, its lucid jurisprudential reasoning precludes the likelihood of an earlier origin.
This Summa is an exposition of Roman law, following the arrangement and titles of Justinian's Codex, but making extensive use of the Digest. It thus contains Roman jurisprudential law, and may be regarded as a compendious textbook for law students, forming apparently the basis of a course of lectures which treated the topics more at length.[3] The author's command of his material is admirable, and his presentation masterly. Whether he was Irnerius or some one else, he was a great teacher. His work may be also called academic, in that his standpoint is always that of the Justinianean law, although he limits his exposition to those topics which had living interest for the twelfth century. Private substantial law forms the chief matter, but procedure is set forth and penal law touched upon. The author
- ↑ For instance, Brach. ii. 12, "De juris et facti ignorantia," is short and clear. It follows mainly Digest xxii. 6.
- ↑ Summa Codicis des Irnerius, ed. by Fitting (Berlin, 1894). See Introduction, and also Fitting in Zeitschrift für Rechtsgeschichte, Bd. xvii. (1896), Romanischf Abteilung, pp. 1-96.
- ↑ Cf. Summa Codicis Irnerii, vii. 23, and vii. 31. 1.
