Theodosian Code, Volume 2

There are three extant Western syllogae: the first was compiled under Emperor Maiorianus (457–461 AD); the second was inserted into the Roman Law of the Visigoths (namely the Alaric Breviary) in 506 AD; the third was composed in Gaul in the sixth century from the two previous ones and extravagant supplementary laws.¹)

Titles The rubric of novella Valentinian 26, presented in the sole codex Γ of the first sylloga, shows that the constitutions sent by Theodosius II to the West in 447 AD are included under the title "Laws of the Lord Theodosius which were enacted after the Theodosian [Code]." It reads: on the confirmation of the laws of the deified [so written by Maiorianus] Theodosius Augustus which were enacted after the Theodosian [Code]. This is confirmed by the rubric of Theodosian novella 1, to whose primitive words on the authority of the Theodosian Code, there are added in the margin of the same book Γ: and on the laws which were enacted after the Theodosian [Code] of the deified Theodosius Augustus (sic). However, for each of the books of constitutions that this codex of the first sylloga presents, the heading "Titles of the new laws" is prescribed. Therefore, the new laws (cf. Nov. Valent. 35, 67) pertaining to the Theodosian Code are contrasted with the Theodosian Code, that is, with the "old laws" (as is held in the prescriptions or subscriptions of the Vatican Breviary codices Φ Ξ π reg. 1050, and similarly in O). Nor did those learned Alaricians who compiled the second sylloga use the title new laws or novel laws or new law any less; a proof is the rubric of Theodosian novella 2, which the Visigoths alone preserved for us: on the confirmation of the new laws of the deified Theodosius A., the interpretation of which law is: this law commands the constitutions of the new laws to be confirmed. Furthermore, one reads in Nov. Valent. 35, 162 "the novel law having been removed," and in Theod. 5, 18, 1, 13 "it is found in the novel laws." Indeed, the prescriptions and subscriptions of the individual books of constitutions, having been handled with little accuracy by the copyists of the codices, can hardly be used to reconstruct the readings of the archetype. Finally, the rubric of the codices Σ and π of the third sylloga, to be discussed below (p. XVIII), contains at the end: "there are made together the books of old and new laws, XXXI." Where our laws are cited by later authors, they are almost always cited under the same name: thus, in the Edict of Theoderic, c. 12, it reads "privileges granted by old or new laws"; likewise c. 68, "the tenor of the novel law being preserved"; c. 155, "from the novel laws and the holiness of the old law." In the Law of the Burgundians, it is held seven times (c. 25–26, 1–31, 5–36, 4–36, 9–37, 6–39, 3) according to the novel law; finally, in the ecclesiastical collection of the Paris codex 12445 (D for us), with excerpts taken from our constitutions, it is prescribed "item in the first book of new laws" (f. 210v) and "in the book of new laws of the deified Valentinian, chap. VIII" (f. 199; the same in Phillipps. 1741 f. 7). I have found novel constitution in the Law of the Burgundians, c. 46; similarly, Justinian, in the constitutions prefixed to his own code, contrasts novel constitutions (see also Theod. 1, 1, 6, 19 and Mos. et Rom. Leg. Collat. 14, 3, 6, 1) with old codes (const. Haec quae necessario § 2; Summa rei publicae § 3), and by the same name he wishes to signify laws to be enacted after the Code in the future (const. Cordi nobis § 4). Only rarely are our constitutions referred to by the word Novellae, as in the scholia of Vatican reg. 886 appended to Theod. 11, 30, 42 (novel of Valentinian) and in Regino of Prüm (on synodal cases II c. 173), where it is cited "from the Roman law of the novels of the deified Maiorianus"; finally, in chapter 2, 2 of the Law of the Burgundians, it is written "according to the law from the corpus of the novels of Theodosius and Valentinian." But from the places cited, it is sufficiently clear that by those who compiled the syllogae from the time of Maiorianus, our constitutions were called under the legitimate title of new laws.

As with the Theodosian [Code], Gaul preserved the new laws pertaining to the Theodosian [Code], whence almost all the books derive their origin; there, the memory of Maiorianus and the deeds he performed survived longer than in the remaining parts of the empire, and the forensic use of the Roman law of the Visigoths endured even under the Franks (cf. Mommsen, Theod. I p. XXXVI sq. LXXXII; de Wretschko, ibidem p. CCCXIII sqq.).

¹) The laws delivered outside these syllogae and their codices, which were enacted from the time of Theodosius II and Valentinian III up to Leo and Anthemius, I have also neglected in the list proposed in the eighth chapter, except for those preserved in the Justinian codex. For to review these Extravagants supplementary laws, stored especially in the depths of canonical collections, is neither the purpose of this edition, nor can it be done without more extensive searches of libraries. You will find a selection of those constitutions in the book by Haenel which is titled Corpus Legum and in Maassen, Geschichte der Quellen und der Litteratur des canonischen Rechts I (1870), 321 sqq.