Why were Justinian 1's reforms important?

Answer 1

Justinian I commissioned a collection of books called Corpus Juris Civilis (Body of Civil Law), which was also dubbed Justinian Code in the 16th century. A first edition was published in 529 and a second one in 534. It was a very comprehensive digest of centuries of Roman civil law which revised the whole of Roman law. It also included collections of essays by famous Roman jurists in two student textbooks.

We do not have a record of the impact the Corpus Juris Civilis had on contemporary Roman society. It later led to the spread of Roman civil law throughout Europe when it was discovered in a library in Pisa in 1070 after having been forgotten. The breath of its scope and its intellectual achievement were clear. The first university in Europe, Bologna University, became important because of its law faculty. It had professors who specialised in the study of the Digest (as it was then known). It attracted law students from around Europe. The work at this university laid the foundations of Medieval Roman law. Its use was spread around Europe by layers trained in Roman law. Later, the Corpus Juris Civilis provided the inspiration for the Napoleonic Code. These two works then provided the foundation of the civil law of many modern countries.

The Corpus Juris Civilis came in four parts:

1) The Codex (book) Justinianus, which was a review of imperial laws going back 400 years (to the time of Hadrian). It scrapped obsolete or unnecessary laws, made changes when necessary and clarified obscure passages. Its aim was to put the laws in a single book (previously they were written on many different scrolls), harmonise conflicting views among jurists which arose from centuries of poorly organised development of Roman law and have a uniform and coherent body of law. It consists of 12 books, 1 book covers ecclesiastical law, the duties of high officers and sources of law, 7 cover private law, 1 criminal law and 3 administrative laws.

2) The Digesta is a collection of fragments taken from essays on laws written by jurists (mostly from the 2nd and 3rd centuries) which express the private opinions of legal experts. Most were from Ulpian (40%) and Paulus (17%). It was a large amount of writing which was condensed in 50 books. It was used as an advanced law student textbook.

3) The Institutiones is a textbook for first year law students written by two professors. It was a series of extracts from statements on the basic institutions of Roman law from the teaching books by 'writers of authority.' In was largely based on the texts of Gaius, a jurist of the 2nd century AD.

4) The Novellae Constitutiones, which contained laws recently issued by Justinian