This study of disputes and their settlement in twelfth-century Tuscany is more than just legal history. Studded with colourful contemporary narratives, the book explores the mindsets of medieval Italians, and examines the legal framework which structured their society. Chris Wickham uncovers the interrelationships and collisions between different legal systems, and in doing so provides a new understanding of mentalities and power in the Italian city-state.

This casebook presents representative texts from Roman legal sources that introduce the basic problems arising in Roman families, including marriage and divorce, the pattern of authority within households, the transmission of property between generations, and the supervision of orphans.

Roman litigation has long been a difficult subject for study, hampered by a lack of information concerning the practical operation of the civil courts. Using newly discovered evidence, Metzger presents a new interpretation of how civil trials in Classical Rome were commenced and brought to judgement.

Rome acquired her great empire under republican institutions. These institutions were held to be remarkably stable because they were a mixture of monarchy, oligarchy and democracy, created by natural evolution not by a lawgiver. The Republic was also a classic example of a largely unwritten constitution, like that of Britain, and so it has bearing on modern political theory.

The Oxford Handbook of Roman Law and Society surveys the landscape of contemporary research and charts principal directions of future inquiry. More than a history of doctrine or an account of jurisprudence, the Handbook brings to bear upon Roman legal study the full range of intellectual resources of contemporary legal history, from comparison to popular constitutionalism, from international private law to law and society, thereby setting itself apart from other volumes as a unique contribution to scholarship on its subject. The Handbook brings the study of Roman law into closer alignment and dialogue with historical, sociological, and anthropological research into law in other periods. It will therefore be of value not only to ancient historians and legal historians already focused on the ancient world, but to historians of all periods interested in law and its complex and multifaceted relationship to society.

This unique publication offers a complete history of Roman law, from its early beginnings through to its resurgence in Europe where it was widely applied until the eighteenth century. Besides a detailed overview of the sources of Roman law, the book also includes sections on private and criminal law and procedure, with special attention given to those aspects of Roman law that have particular importance to today's lawyer. The last three chapters of the book offer an overview of the history of Roman law from the early Middle Ages to modern times and illustrate the way in which Roman law furnished the basis of contemporary civil law systems. In this part, special attention is given to the factors that warranted the revival and subsequent reception of Roman law as the 'common law' of Continental Europe. Combining the perspectives of legal history with those of social and political history, the book can be profitably read by students and scholars, as well as by general readers with an interest in ancient and early European legal history. The civil law tradition is the oldest legal tradition in the world today, embracing many legal systems currently in force in Continental Europe, Latin America and other parts of the world. Despite the considerable differences in the substantive laws of civil law countries, a fundamental unity exists between them. The most obvious element of unity is the fact that the civil law systems are all derived from the same sources and their legal institutions are classified in accordance with a commonly accepted scheme existing prior to their own development, which they adopted and adapted at some stage in their history. Roman law is both in point of time and range of influence the first catalyst in the evolution of the civil law tradition.

Hambledon & London. Hardcover. Book Condition: New. Brand New Mint Hardcover With Dustjacket.

This book is a study of the character and compilation of Justinian's Digest, the main volume of Justinian's Corpus Iuris Civilis (528-534 AD). This is often considered as one of the most influential works in the history of Western culture. It remains significant, partly because it is still a part of the law in six countries in Southern Africa, and partly because of its role in the evolution over fifteen hundred years of the theory and practice of human rights - a theme explored in Professor Honore's previous book studying Ulpian (2nd ed, OUP 2002).
The book gives a detailed account of the probable methods used in the compilation of the Digest and distinguishes the respective roles of imperial ministers, law professors, and advocates. It also examines the broader issues raised by the Digest's creation - how it was conceived by its compilers, its purpose, and its impact.

Seeking to fill a gap in our knowledge of the legal history of the nineteenth century, this volume studies the influence of Roman and civil law upon the development of common law jurisdictions in the United States and in Great Britain. M. H. Hoeflich examines the writings of a variety of prominent Anglo-American legal theorists to show how Roman and civil law helped common law thinkers develop their own theories.

Intellectual leaders in law in the United States and Great Britain used Roman and civil law in different ways at different times. The views of these lawyers were greatly respected even by nonlawyers, and most of them wrote to influence a wider public. By filling in the gaps in the history of jurisprudence, this volume also provides greater understanding of the development of Anglo-American culture and society.

In the first volume in this new series on Roman society and law, Saskia T. Roselaar traces the social and economic history of the ager publicus, or public land. As the Romans conquered Italy during the fourth to first centuries BC, they usually took land away from their defeated enemies and declared this to be the property of the Roman state. This land could be distributed to Roman citizens, but it could also remain in the hands of the state, in which case it was available for general public use. However, in the third and second centuries BC growth in the population of Italy led to an increased demand for land among both commercial producers and small farmers. This in turn led to the gradual privatization of the state-owned land, as those who held it wanted to safeguard their rights to it. Roselaar traces the currents in Roman economy and demography which led to these developments.

An overarching question of contemporary constitutionalism is whether equilibriums devised prior to the emergence of the modern administrative-industrial state can be preserved or recreated by means of fundamental law. The book approaches this problem indirectly, through the conceptual lens offered by constitutional developments relating to the adoption of normative limitations on the delegation of law-making authority. Three analytical strands (constitutional theory, constitutional history, and contemporary constitutional and administrative law) run through the argument. They merge into a broader account of the conceptual ramifications, the phenomenon, and the constitutional treatment of delegation in a number of paradigmatic legal systems. As it is argued, the development and failure of constitutional rules imposing limits on legislative delegation reveal the conditions for the possibility of classical limited government and, conversely, the erosion of normativity in contemporary constitutionalism.

Roman contract law has profoundly influenced subsequent legal systems throughout the world, but is inarguably an important subject in its own right. This casebook introduces students to the rich body of Roman law concerning contracts between private individuals. In order to bring out the intricacy of Roman contract law, the casebook employs the case-law method-actual Roman texts, drawn from Justinian's Digest and other sources, are presented both in Latin and English, along with introductions and discussions that fill out the background of the cases and explore related legal issues. This method reflects the casuistic practices of the jurists themselves: concentrating on the fact-rich environment in which contracts are made and enforced, while never losing sight of the broader principles upon which the jurists constructed the law. The casebook concentrates especially on stipulation and sale, which are particularly well represented in surviving sources. Beyond these and other standard contracts, the book also has chapters on the capacity to contract, the creation of third-party rights and duties, and the main forms of unjustified enrichment. What students can hope to learn from this casebook is not only the general outlines and details of Roman contract law, but also how the jurists developed such law out of rudimentary civil procedures. An online teacher's manual is available for instructors; to access it, see page xxi of the Casebook.

Roman families were infinitely diverse, but the basis of Roman civil law was the familia, a strictly-defined group consisting of a head, paterfamilias, and his descendants in the male line. Recent work on the Roman family mainly ignores the familia, in favour of examining such matters as emotional relationships within families, the practical effects of control by a paterfamilias, and demographic factors producing families which did not fit the familia-pattern. This book investigates the interrelationship between family and familia, especially how families exploited the legal rules for their own ends, and disrupted the familia, by use of emancipation (release from patria potestas) and adoption. It also traces legal responses to the effects of demographic factors, which gave increased importance to maternal connections, and to social, such as the difficulties for ex-slaves in conforming to the familia-pattern. The familia as a legal institution remained virtually unchanged; nevertheless Roman family law underwent substantial changes, to meet the needs and desires of Roman society.

In Staging the Trials of Modernism, Dale Barleben explores the interactions among literature, cultural studies, and the law through detailed analyses of select British modern writers including Oscar Wilde, Joseph Conrad, Ford Madox Ford, and James Joyce. By tracing the relationships between the literature, authors, media, and judicial procedure of the time, Barleben illuminates the somewhat macabre element of modern British trial process, which still enacts and re-enacts itself throughout contemporary judicial systems of the British Commonwealth. Using little seen legal documents, like Ford's contempt trial decision, Staging the Trials of Modernism uncovers the conversations between the interior style of British Modern authors and the ways in which law began rethinking concepts like intent and the subconscious. Barleben's fresh insights offer a nuanced look into the ways in which law influences literary production.

Imperial and Local Citizenship in the Long Second Century CE offers a radical new history of Roman citizenship in the long century before Caracalla's universal grant of citizenship in 212 CE. Earlier work portrayed the privileges of citizen status in this period as eroded by its wide diffusion. Building on recent scholarship that has revised downward estimates for the spread of citizenship, this work investigates the continuing significance of Roman citizenship in the domains of law, economics and culture. From the writing of wills to the swearing of oaths and crafting of marriage, Roman citizens conducted affairs using forms and language that were often distinct from the populations among which they resided. Attending closely to patterns at the level of province, region and city, this volume offers a new portrait of the early Roman empire: a world that sustained an exclusive regime of citizenship in a context of remarkable political and cultural integration.

This book provides a thorough introduction to Roman property law by means of "cases," consisting of brief excerpts from Roman juristic sources in the original Latin with accompanying English translations. The cases are selected and grouped so as to provide an overview of each topic and an orderly exposition of its parts. To each case is attached a set of questions that invite the reader to, e.g., clarify ambiguities in the jurist's argument, reconcile one holding with another, supply missing but necessary facts to account for the holding, and/or engage in other analytical activities. The casebook also illustrates the survival and adaptation of elements of Roman property law in the modern European civil codes, especially the three most influential of those codes: the General Civil Code of Austria (Allgemeines Burgerliches Gesetzbuch), the German Civil Code (Burgerliches Gesetzbuch), and the Civil Code of Switzerland (Zivilgesetzbuch). All code excerpts are accompanied by English translations. By comparing and contrasting how the codes have adopted, adapted, or rejected an underlying Roman rule or concept, it is possible for the reader to observe the dynamic character and continuing life of the Roman legal tradition. To facilitate comparison with corresponding rules and concepts in the English common law tradition, additional texts and questions prepared by the translator will be mounted on an accompanying website, www.oup.com/us/romanpropertylaw."

This edited collection presents an interesting and original series of essays on the roles of principle and pragmatism in Roman private law. The book traverses key areas of Roman law to examine the explanatory power of - and delineate interactions between - abstract, doctrinal principle, and pragmatic, real-world problem-solving. Essays canvassing sources of law, property, succession, contracts and delicts sketch the varied roles of theoretical narratives - whether internal to Roman doctrine or derived from external influence - and of practical, policy-based solutions in the jurists' thought. Principled reasoning in Roman juristic argument ranges from safeguarding commerce, to the priority of acts or intentions in property transactions, to notions of pietas, to Platonic conceptions of the market. Pragmatism is discernible in myriad ways, from divergence between form and substance, to extension of legal rules for economic, social or political utility, to emphasis on what parties did rather than what they said. The distinctive contribution of the book is its survey of different manifestations of principle and pragmatism across Roman private law. The essays - by eminent as well as emerging academics - will stimulate debate about the roles principle and pragmatism play in juristic argument, and will be of interest to both scholars and students of Roman law.

By the Sweat of Your Brow brings together the contributions of seven scholars from the UK and the European continent on different aspects of the socio-economic setting of Roman slavery. Individual chapters discuss the slave chapter of Diocletian's Edict on Maximum Prices, the relationship between slave and free labour, the status of managerial slaves such as vilici and dispensatores, the use of legal sources for our understanding of the role of slavery in Roman society, the unchanging nature of slave prices from classical Athens and late antique Rome, the similarity in discourse and reality of the functions carried out by estate managers in ancient Rome and modern slave and serf societies, and, last, the structural relationship between a slave's peculium, the acquisition of freedom, and citizenship. Each chapter provides in-depth analysis of its chosen subject matter thus furthering the modern debate on the role of slavery in Rome's society and economy as well as on the interrelationship between the peculiar institution and its socio-economic setting.

This book compares the respective concepts of the law of nations put forward by the Spanish theologian Francisco Suarez and by the Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius. This comparison is based on the fact that both thinkers developed quite similar notions and were the first to depart from the Roman conception, which persisted throughout the entire Middle Ages and the early Renaissance. In Rome, jus gentium was a law that applied to foreigners within the Empire, and one which was often mistaken for Natural Law itself. These two features can be found even in the works of writers such as Francisco de Vitoria and Alberico Gentili. In Suarez and Grotius, the law of nations is applicable to an extra-national domain and inarguably becomes positive law. Yet, it also contains an ethical element that prevents it from transforming into a mere reflection of state interests. This work argues that this resemblance is hardly a coincidence: Grotius has read Suarez, and that influence has modified the foundations of his early thoughts on jus gentium. This should not be taken to imply that the Dutch jurist wasn't original: in both authors, the definition of the law of nations pursues his own internal logic. Nevertheless, Suarez's oeuvre allowed Grotius to solve a fundamental problem touched on in his early writings that had remained unanswered. Accordingly, his oeuvre promises to clarify one of the most significant moments in the History of International Law.

Cicero's Topica is one of the canonical texts on ancient rhetorical theory. This is the first full-scale commentary on this work, and the first critical edition of the work that is informed by a full analysis of its transmission.

Scotland has a special claim for the attention of comparative lawyers, of legal historians, and of those who seek to identify a common core in European private law or to develop a new ius commune. For Scotland stands at the inter-section of the two great traditions of European law - of the law of Rome, received and developed in Continental Europe, and of the law which originated in England but was exported throughout the British Empire. In Scotland, uniquely in Europe, there is to be found a fusion of the civil law and the common law.

This revised edition with new introduction of Andrew Lintott's classic book discusses the causes behind the violence which erupted periodically in Rome during the Republic. It examines the political conflict, violence, military insurrection, and authoritarian government of the Roman Republic.

This is a new book from an eminent and well-respected scholar. A work of reference; an essay in the analysis of style; a contribution to the prosopography of the late Roman quaestorship; a reflection on the fall of the western and the survival of the eastern Roman empire: the book combines all four. Using his innovative method of analysis, already successfully employed in his highly-acclaimed Emperors and Lawyers (2nd edn 1994, OUP), the author examines the laws of a crucial period of the late Roman empire (379-455 AD), a time when the West collapsed while the East survived. He allots the laws to their likely drafters and shows why the eastern Theodosian Code (429-438 AD), intended to restore the legal and administrative unity of the Roman empire, came too late to save the West. The accompanying Palingenesia on an accompanying disk will enable scholars to read the texts chronologically and to judge the soundness of the arguments advanced.

This is a new and thought-provoking look at law and marriage in late antiquity, dealing particularly with the legislation on marriage enacted by the Roman emperor Constantine. Though Constantine is usually accepted as being the first Christian emperor, Judith Grubbs argues here that the extent of Christian influence on his marriage legislation was limited. Her study of his laws against the background of both classical Roman law and early Christian attitudes toward marriage reveals much about contemporary behavior and belief in this period.

European culture has been greatly influenced by the Christian Church and Greek and Roman culture. However, the peoples of Europe's remote past, whom the Greeks, Romans, and their medieval heirs called the "barbarians", also left their mark. Closely examining ancient and medieval narratives and the codifications of laws, this thoughtfully conducted comparative study sheds light on the illiterate societies of the early Germanic and Slavic peoples. The picture that emerges is one of communities built on kinship, neighborly, and tribal relations, where decision making, judgement, and punishment were carried out collectively, and the distinction between the sacred and profane was unknown.