ProQuest Dissertations - The University of Arizona Campus Repository

understand the cause of the fact that, when
so many rewards are held out for the maintenance
of art and liberal studies, so few are found
who are endowed with a full knowledge of
the civil law, and even they so seldom:
. . . hardly one or two have attained to
sound and complete learning (p. 68).
They had reviewed the "enormous multitude of books, the
diverse modes of processes, and the difficulty of legal
cases," as well as the huge mass of imperial constitutions,
and made a short compendium. Thus men need no longer wait for
answers from expert lawyers. They considered that they had
wiped away the cloud of volumes on which many had wasted their
lives, and had brought to light imperial constitutions since
the time of Constantine, and they forbade anyone to use other
authorities in the practice of law after January l of the
following year. They had mentioned the previous Emperors, but
made their constitutions briefer.
It is enough and more than enough to satisfy
our consciences, that we have unveiled the
laws eind redeemed the words of our ancestors
from the injury of obsctirity (p. 70).
Other constitutions in the Byzantine Empire were not to be
passed without imperial approval. It seems similar to
Montaigne's effort in the Essais. which are not only an