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Compilations of the most important laws, that were written by two jurists. These two texts are not official. The two juries though that was necessary to order some laws. -
Caracalla promulgated the Constitutio Antoniniana: with this constitution, everybody in the Roman Empire was a citizen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOeyibKwESw -
He divided the empire for better administration. Tetrarchy, where four people ruled because the empire was divided. They tried to recover the power the empire had. -
. He promulgated the Code of Euric. He was the first king to reduce laws preserved by the tradition of writing.
BREVIARY OF ALARIC II, he promulgated that Code also known as Lex romana visigothorum. Its content is leges (Imperial constitutions) and iura (replies by classical jurists). -
The balance disappears because now the Emperor has all the power. The Roman Empire begins to fall. -
Anthologies and epitomes (abstracts) legal documents were they tried to simplified law because even jurists did not understand the legal definitions. Alaric in 506 made an anthology as law: The Roman Law of the Visigoths. Legal couture was in crisis because the law was not important at that time, that is the reason why people did not want to work as jurists or as a lawyer. Jurists did not understand the legal aspects. -
He tried to recover the classical period. The first goal was territorial unification. He wanted religious peace. He tried to made a Compilation of law and he divided that into 4 parts: Codex, Digesta, Instituta, Novellae.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbsxAsmNwzU -
Territorial unification: Defeat of the Suevi and Byzantines. Strengthening royal power: Plenitudo potestades. Codex Revisus a review of the Code of Euric. This Code did not survived: laws appeared in the Liber Iudiciorum with the inscription : antiquae.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFM-icTA9jA -
Strengthening of loyal power against the nobility.
Liber Iudiciorum: set of laws promulgated by several Visigoths kings
Independence from Roman Law: To apply both, Romans and Visigoths, text for trials, it remained until the Early Middle Ages. -
At this age, society had problems: hunger, pandemics, wars or plagues. Surviving was the most important thing for that people.
People did not know how to write or how to read. There was no professors, teachers or cultural elites. Judges judge because they are old people who knew their customs. They did not know about the law they just followed the customs. Jurists were not prepared to interpret laws or norms because they did not study law, they tried to explain the legal problems. -
The church split into the Eastern and the Western churches. The investiture conflict, between the pope and the emperor. The pope won the conflict.
Legal professionals were not in this framework. Craft and commerce were also excluded: trade considered practice for undue and illicit gain. Second half 11th: radical renewal. The structure of feudal civilisation was crumbling. Canons of all manual and professional operations were overthrown. New urban markets and new social classes.