Lex Canuleia

The Lex Canuleia is a law of the Roman Republic passed in the year 445 BC.[1][2]

Named after the tribune Gaius Canuleius, who proposed it, it abolished a corresponding prohibition in the Twelve Tables and allowed marriage between patricians and plebeians, with children inheriting the father's social status.[3] It is also referred to in Latin as the Lex de conubio patrum et plebis.

Canuleius also carried through a law that permitted plebeians to hold the office of consul, the highest of the Roman magistracies, which the patricians had retained as their prerogative.[4]

In fiction

In the 1930s novella Goodbye Mr Chips,[5] which is set in an English Public School, its protagonist is trying to explain the law to his Remove Class:

“So, if Mr Patrician told Miss Plebs that, love you as I do, I cannot marry you; she would reply ‘Oh yes you can, you liar!’”

See also

References

  1. ↑ The Roman Law Library, incl. Leges
  2. ↑ Harriet I. Flower (6 September 2011). Roman Republics. Princeton University Press. pp. 210–. ISBN 1-4008-3116-4.
  3. ↑ Liv. 4.1-7
  4. ↑ William McCuaig (14 July 2014). Carlo Sigonio: The Changing World of the Late Renaissance. Princeton University Press. pp. 235–. ISBN 978-1-4008-6035-7.
  5. ↑ Hilton,J.Little, Brown and Company, 1934