Talk:Corpus Juris Civilis

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Contents 1 Byzantine law is not just The Corpus Juris Civilis 2 The Corpus Iuris and Judaism 3 Request name change to Byzantine Law 4 Unintellectual addition 5 Justinian 6 "Revival" 7 "Sub-Roman"

[edit] Byzantine law is not just The Corpus Juris Civilis

It underwent major reforms during the Macedonian Dynasty, and it also had a profound impact on maritime law. This article should be broken down to reflect these points and others in more detail. --Anon

I am in agreement, there needs to be a general Byzantine law article with a segment on the Corpus Juris Civilis. --Caponer 15:14, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Corpus Iuris and Judaism

In the course of my edit, I removed the following language from the beginning of the article.

"It was profoundly anti-semitic. It reduced the jews to citizens of second class. Judaism was described as an "infectious disease" which led to death."

This was inserted by an anonymous user yesterday and I think it was not an entirely appropriate statement for a couple of reasons:

1. It is certainly true that the Corpus Iuris contains a nuber of provisions which discriminate against Jews. Still, I think it is not justified to characterize it as "profoundly antisemitic" and still less justified to place this statement at the beginning of a (currently very short) encyclopedia article on the CIC. This gives the impression as if anti-semitism were the single most important feature of the CIC. This is not the case. Discriminatory provisions constitute only a fraction of the texts of the CIC. Moreover, these provisions were taken over in large part from preivious legislation. The above-quoted statement gives the impression as if anti-semitic laws had been newly introduced at the occasion of the promulgatioon of the Corpus Iuris.
2. I was unable to verify the specific assertion that "Judaism was described as an "infectious disease" which led to death." anywhere in the CIC. No such language seems to exist in C. 1, 9, the title of Justinian's Code dealing specifically with the legal status of Jews.

For these reasons, I replaced the paragraph in question with a more detailed and softer statement regarding the reflection of the Empire's social order in the CIC and specifically the position of Jews. I moved this text from the beginning of the article to the section dealing with the Codex Justinianus. I think this is more appropriate since the Code is the part which contains most (if not all) of the disciminatory provisions. I would like to leave it to further discussion whether it is advisable to write about the discriminatory provisions in the CIC at such length in this article.

I completely deleted the text regarding judaism as an infectious disease. If someone comes up with a source containing such language, it could be put back in.

I hope these changes are acceptable to all, including the user who inserted the original paragraph. Otherwise I'll be happy to discuss all suggestions for futher improvements and enhancements of the text. --Thomas Ruefner 20:16, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I don't think the paragraph on anti-Jewish legislation belongs in this article at all: it makes it sound as if this legislation exists as a separate volume alongside the Codex, the Digest and the Novellae. The information is important, but should go to some more general article on late Roman law. --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) 13:34, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Request name change to Byzantine Law

I want to enlarge this article to cover a wider variety of time, I have a few good sources now so can we change it?

You could write a separate article, since they are not exactly the same. Adam Bishop 08:28, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I concur with Adam. Rodney Boyd 11:55, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I am willing to make a compromise over this, so I'll start one tomorrow.

I agree with Adam and Rodney — Corpus Juris Civilis should be an article on its own. Of course, if you create an article on Byzantine Law, CJC would warrant some space in it, with a Template:Main tag directing the reader to CJC for more info. — Joe Kress 01:51, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

I am not sure how to do this, but I think we should have body of civil law redirect here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.13.61.61 (talk) 13:03, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Civil law is a broader subject than the corpus of Roman law, which in turn is not fully embodied in the specific documents that are the subject of this article. Each civil law has its own corpus. --Wetman 14:11, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Unintellectual addition

Someone had made a rather unintellectual addition to this page. I think I managed to remove it, however am new to Wikipedia alterations....it was in the second section..—Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.27.58.87 (talk • contribs)

Thanks for your help, but other than my recent reversion of vandalism, the only recent "attempt to remove vandalism" was by Lulujannings who only merged two previously separate paragraphs (in the second section), which is writing style, not vandalism. — Joe Kress 05:40, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

"It is certainly true that the Corpus Iuris contains a nuber of provisions which discriminate against Jews", byzantine law ....Judaism... racism... Totally shocked here. Folks, where did you study Roman Law Institutions? Who were your professors? --Jack 1:30, 17 Jan 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Justinian

Justinian was a survivor of the plague, although it took it's toll on him and he later suffered many effects of the disease. This may have taken a few years off what his life span would have been.

This can be mentioned in the Justinian article. I doubt what effect it may have had on his life span, as he died in his eighties. Iblardi 15:11, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Revival"

I disagree with part of the intro particularly the following statement.

Justinian gave orders to collect legal materials of various kinds into several new codes which became the basis of the revival of Roman law in the Middle Ages.

This seems to imply Roman law was effectively dead worldwide and Justinian brought about a renaissance. That implication is completely untrue. Roman law was alive and well in the empire. Justinian's contribution was to codify and organize what had been a patchwork of legislation.

What is true is that in the West Roman law had largely died out and when the West began to reorganize itself they adopted Justinian's code as the basis for their new legal systems (at that time they were not "denying" the Romanness of the Eastern Roman Empire as Western historians of the Renaissance did).

Also, by the same token is it appropriate to call Justinian a "Byzantine Emperor"? Granted the point in history where "Roman" history ends and "Byzantine" history begins is highly debated. But, among other things, the term "Byzantine" tends to be reserved for the period when the empire switched to being strictly Greek-speaking and stopped associating itself with the West. Given that Latin was the language of Justinian's court, and he was the one that tried to restore the empire, it seems odd to not call him the Roman Emperor. The Justinian I article refers to him as the Eastern Roman Emperor which seems more appropriate.

--Mcorazao 05:25, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Sub-Roman"

People who haven't read any history seem to have such a problem over this descriptive term. It was confidently deleted here, where it is currently being used to modify Odoacer's kingdom, suggestive of. Odoacer's struggle to keep up Roman appearances. "Sub-Roman" is such a clear signifier: do people think it means "sub-human" or something? I'm hornswoggled. --Wetman (talk) 20:39, 25 December 2007 (UTC)