Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

codification 247
cousin and father-in-law in Constantinople had sent him with a letter dated
1 October 447. 36 A collection of Novels which was made in Italy in 460 or
461 contained these thirty-five from Theodosius II, thirty-nine from
Valentinian himself and at least twelve from Majorian. Later western collections
made occasional additions to this 460/1 collection, including five
from the eastern emperor Marcian (450–7). In total we have from western
sources 102 post-Theodosian Novels dating from between 438 and 468. In
the east the story is hidden behind the Codex Justinianus, which prohibited
recourse to all earlier collections of constitutions. 37 Whether collected privately
or officially in the manner of Theodosius II, the Novels surviving
from the western empire retain the outworks cut away in the codices. They
still have the preambles reciting their cause and purpose, and on occasion
an epilogue and particular instructions about promulgation. In addition,
the subject matter of individual constitutions, sometimes of several
together, is identified in a short title.
Half a year after his sole reign began, Justinian revived the project
mooted by Theodosius II for a codification of the whole law. He proposed
to achieve it in a rather simpler manner. On 13 February 528 he set up a
commission of ten, consisting of high-ranking public servants with two
generals, one professor of law and two advocates. He charged them to take
the three existing codices, the Gregorian, Hermogenian and Theodosian,
together with all eastern Novels issued since, to select all the constitutions
which remained in operation, to excerpt and simplify them and to purge
them of everything that was out of date, repetitive or contradictory. The
powers of the commission extended not only to deletions and alterations
but also to supplementation and to consolidation of diverse constitutions
on the same subject matter. And yet, since the constitutions were then to
be arranged in chronological order within titles and each with its proper
inscription (author and recipient) and subscription (place and date), the
edited texts would still bear attributions to the emperor who originally
issued them or, in the case of a consolidation of several constitutions, to
the emperor who issued the earliest. 38 Justinian thus gave his commissioners
wider powers than had Theodosius in 429 and 435. He had also learned
by the earlier commission’s experience that a professor of law was essential
to its purpose. In the intervening period the archives in the capital had
also been put in a more satisfactory condition.
The commissioners were able to complete their work in just over a year.
They arranged the material in an intelligible order, easy to survey. And they
managed to bring the number of books down to twelve. Previously, if one
adds together those of the Gregorianus, Hermogenianus and Theodosianus and
the subsequent Novels, there had been more than thirty. Admittedly each
36 Nov. Theod. 2. 37 CJ Const. Summa 3. 38 CJ Const. Haec; cf. Honoré (1978) 212–14.
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