Law and justice in the later Roman Empire

Book synopsis: The appearance in 1964 of A.H.M. Jones’ The Later Roman Empire 284–602: A Social, Economic, and Administrative Survey transformed the study of the Late Antique world. In this volume a number of leading scholars reassess the impact of Jones’ great work, the influences that shaped his scholarship, and the legacy he left for later generations. Jones’ historical method, his fundamental knowledge of Late Roman political, social, economic and religious structures, and his famous assessment of the Decline and Fall of Rome are re-examined here in the light of modern research. This volume offers a valuable aid to academics and students alike who seek to better understand and exploit the priceless resource that is the Later Roman Empire

Law, bureaucracy and the practice of government and rule

The chapter explores the 'logic of empire' in relation to law, bureaucracy and the practice of government, from the Ancient world to the present. Beginning with the complex example of Haile Selassie I and the Ethiopian Empire, the chapter analyses the many universalisms of law and empire, before moving on to a survey of different 'repertories' of imperial rule. The chapter then examines the numerous ways in which empires put law 'to work', facilitating the development of multiple, normative orders and institutions far beyond the jurisdiction of their own imperial officials. The final section of the chapter briefly introduces (post)colonial legal scholarship and the concept of 'legalism from below', with a specific focus on recent archival research in courtroom records.PostprintPeer reviewe

Natural law and casuistic reasoning in Roman jurisprudence

“The Roman jurists, 'calculating with concepts', did not need any natural law” (Christoph Kletzer). Focusing on the Classical juristic material in Justinian’s Digest, in addition to Gaius’ Institutes, this essay argues that natural law was in fact one concept, amongst others, that Roman jurists calculated with. There is no evidence for any Roman juristic treatises dedicated to natural law, yet as Levy noted in 1949: “Hundreds of texts are concerned with ius naturale, naturalis ratio, rerum natura and other phrases related to natura or naturalis. It is impossible to find a common denominator”. The essay divides into two parts: first, it surveys a series of arguments drawn from those 'hundreds' of Roman juristic texts that relate to natural reason and natural law(s). Second, it analyses the Roman juristic method of ‘calculating with concepts’. The argument throughout is that the ‘common denominator’ that eluded Levy is the Roman jurists own, highly particular, type of case-methodology.Publisher PD

Legal pluralism’s Other : mythologizing modern law

This article interrogates the concept of legal pluralism, as it currently tends to function within contemporary legal and historical scholarship. It argues that the concept of legal pluralism cannot 'liberate' positivist analytical legal theory from monist (municipal, state-centric etc.) straightjackets, but rather itself presumes the primacy of centralized state-issued law - at the same time as masking that primacy within a pluralist discourse. The concept of legal pluralism should be properly understood – and analyzed – as part of the mythology of modern law, not as an alternative to it. The first two sections develop this argument via a critical tour of legal-pluralist historiography, focusing on 1986 to the present-day. The final section then moves on to explore what is at stake for the pre-modern historian when they apply (modern) concepts of legal pluralism to try to explain the multiplicity of legal orders that they invariably encounter in their own source material.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Ordering Divine Knowledge in Late Roman Legal Discourse

In the celebrated words of the Severan jurist Ulpian – echoed three hundred years later in the opening passages of Justinian’s Institutes – knowledge of the law entails knowledge of matters both human and divine. This essay explores how relations between the human and divine were structured and ordered in the Imperial codex of Theodosius II (438 CE). Deliberately side stepping vexed categories such as ‘Christian’, ‘pagan’, ‘heresiological’ etc., the essay self-consciously frames the question as one of ‘knowledge-ordering’ in order to develop a broader framework concerning relations between emperors and the divine. How was knowledge about the divine textualised in Book XVI of the Codex Theodosianus and with what implications for a late Roman imperial ‘ordering of knowledge’

Gift-giving and inheritance strategies in late Roman law and legal practice

In Roman law, an inheritance could be passed on according to the rules of intestate or testate succession. The Roman law of succession presents people with an enormous display of legal ingenuity. This chapter analyses some of the legal instruments and rules by which late Roman testators and donors were able to pursue making over bequests and inheritances to the institutional Christian church. It presents an overview of Roman family law and inheritance structures, paying particular attention to post-classical legal developments. The chapter explores donation and inheritance law in the specific context of the institutional Christian church from the age of Constantine onwards. It expands on this analysis via a focus on specific examples of strategic behaviour relating to Christian gift-giving and inheritance in the later fourth, fifth and sixth centuries AD. It shows that Roman legislators themselves engaged in strategic behaviour, attempting to use the Roman law of donation and inheritance as a means of socio-religious control.Postprin

A new legal cosmos : late Roman lawyers and the early medieval church

The idea that a knowledge of Roman legal techniques would lead to a correct understanding of Christian Scripture, and thence to orthodox belief and practice, belongs to the age of Justinian. One reason why Roman law appears in early Christian writings is because early Christian writers used Roman law and Roman legal institutions in everyday contexts. The chapter focuses on a specific example: the imperial grant of permanent 'defenders' (advocates) to Christian churches, made in response to a planned and co-ordinated initiative from a group of early fifth-century North African ecclesiastics. It briefly describes the late Roman imperial law and its cosmological context. Christian, legal cosmos in which the 'saints' function as privileged cosmic actors–their earthly judgments underpinned by their participation in the Final Judgment to come. On a cosmological scale, heretics were to be 'eliminated like a poison from humanity'.Postprin

'Cherchez la femme!' Heresy and law in late antiquity

In contrast with contemporary heresiological discourse, the Codex Theodosianus, a Roman imperial law code promulgated in 438, makes no systematic gendered references to heretics or heresy. According to late Roman legislative rhetoric, heretics are demented, polluted and infected with pestilence, but they are not seductive temptresses, vulgar ‘women’ or weak-minded whores. This article explores the gap between the precisely marked terrain of Christian heresiologists and (Christian) legislators. The first part gives a brief overview of early Christian heresiology. The second explores late Roman legislation and the construction of the heretic as a ‘legal subject’ in the Codex Theodosianus. The third turns to the celebrated account crafted by Pope Leo I of anti-Manichaean trials at Rome in 443/4, arguing that they should be understood as part of a much broader developing regime of ecclesial power, rather than as concrete applications of existing imperial anti-heresy laws.Postprin