What is the historical signaficance of Justinians Law Code?

Answer 1

Its real name was Body of Civil Law (Corpus Iuris Civilis). It was a massive digest with a selection of centuries of Roman legislation. It also had a collection of essays on jurisprudence and a textbook for students. When it was rediscovered in a library in Pisa in 1070 it had a massive influence in Italy and this influence spread around Europe. The code is one of the main reasons why the law in so many countries is based on or influenced by Roman civil law.

Answer 2

Justinian I commissioned the Corpus Juris Civilis (Body of Civil Law) which systematised Roman civil law in the 6th century. It came in four parts: the Codex Justinianus, which collected four hundred years of laws into one book (previously law were written on separate scrolls), scrapped obsolete laws, made necessary changes and clarified obscure passages with the aim of harmonising conflicting views among jurists which arose from centuries of poorly organised Roman law and produce a uniform and coherent body of law; the Digesta, which collected fragments form essays on law by prominent jurists into fifty books and was used as a textbook for advanced law students; the Institutiones, which was 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 f by 'writers of authority;' and the Novellae Constitutiones, which contained laws recently issued by Justinian.

The Corpus Juris Civilis (which was dubbed the Justinian Code in the 16th century) was forgotten until it was discovered in a library in Pisa in 1070. This had a big impact. Bologna University, the first university in the world, attracted law students from all over Europe because it had four professors who specialised in the study of the Digest (as it was then known)..The work at this university laid the foundations of Medieval Roman law. Corpus Juris Civilis was adopted throughout Western Europe and became the foundation for the training of the emerging legal profession of Europe.

The Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I (reigned 1122-1190) adopted Roman civil law for the administration of his empire. By the time he acceded to the throne, the Corpus Juris Civilis was well established around Europe. However, Frederick was the first ruler to employ professional lawyers for his administration and civil law created a framework for the administration of a state by lawyers according to consistent set of law. This was something new for European kingdoms, which were run by the court of the kings and aristocrats who were loyal to kings. This system based on the Corpus Juris Civilis enabled Frederick to strengthen his control over his empire and to make up for the loss of the claim to divine right to rule which had been suffered by previous Holy Roman Emperors during controversy with the papacy. Roman civil law had clearly set out secular principles of public, administrative and private law.

In 1804 Napoleon I established the Napoleonic Code, the French civil code of civil law. This was the first modern code of civil law. It also had a pan-European scope as it intended to be applicable to the countries which were formed in Europe with the Napoleonic Wars. Its copulation was inspired by the Corpus Juris Civilis, but differed in that it was not a collection of extract of existing laws. It was a comprehensive rewriting of law and it was more highly structured. It was an exclusively secular code, whilst the Codex Justinianus included books on ecclesiastical law. The civil law of modern continental European countries have been influenced to varying degrees by the Napoleonic Code, except for the British Isles, the Scandinavian countries and Russia. It has also influenced some developing countries, especially in the Middle East.