FOREWARNING

ON THE UTILITY TO BE GAINED FROM THE FOLLOWING CHRONOLOGY OF LAW.

To understand Roman laws and to interpret them rightly is no light task, but requires great sharpness of wit and a huge apparatus of learning and especially of historical knowledge. How miserably they have fallen, and into what errors they have wandered, who have entered the sea of Roman laws destitute of these lights, is taught by the vast writings of the Jurisconsults who first collected the codes of rising Roman law in Italy and other regions of the western part, and whose iron diligence and ingenuity of wit we, admiring, usually laugh at for their jejune interpretations that deviate from the truth. Yet such was the misfortune of that century that the sources still lay hidden, everything was immersed in the densest shadows, and thus there was a most grave defect of the means which made for interpreting Roman laws. There is no cause left for our century to complain about this: all monuments of antiquity have been brought forth and placed in an illustrious location, so that knowledge of them can be had with lighter effort. Therefore, the negligence of those who approach the sacred things of laws with hands as yet unwashed is not to be excused today, and who, laboring under the thickest ignorance of Roman matters, dare to shake out the meanings of the laws and discourse upon them with great confidence. Yet they are so inflated and turgid with their own proletarian knowledge that, looking upon the more solid knowledge of antiquities and history as an idle matter, they are not ashamed to know from wit alone and to fashion the meanings of the laws from it, or indeed sometimes to foist them upon others with a certain dictatorial authority. We allow these men to abound in their own sense, since there is no lack of others who, having embraced sounder principles, know how to value the means which the history of law provides for the genuine interpretation of laws. For who does not understand how much knowledge of the condition and, as we are accustomed to say, of the circumstances in which the speaker was placed can benefit in investigating the opinion of another? Would the matter stand otherwise in the explanation of laws, where the primary part of interpretation is to know who was the author of the law, to whom it was directed, for what reason it was enacted, which, if you can state, you have moved every stone. But from where can we draw this knowledge if not from the history of law and of laws, which is accustomed to uncover and exhibit most clearly the condition of the legislator, his intention, and the origin, scope, and mutation of the law. But there is no reason for me to amass many things here and to commend the utility of the history of law at length, since the admonitions of most learned men are displayed in public, and their writings speak of it sufficiently. I shall say what has been achieved in the present edition of the Code of law with respect to the history of law. The intention was to warn students of law, whose first care usually is to procure for themselves the Corpus Juris Civilis, immediately from its front, to begin their study from the history of laws, since it contains the history and from it they seek the best defense for a good interpretation. Therefore, in their favor,

we have prefixed a CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY OF LAW collected from diverse and best authors. As a foundation, we used the brief chronological history of law by the most learned Jurisconsult of Bourges, FRANCIS BROËUS, which he added to his expositions on the four books of the Institutes of Emperor Justinian. For that, since it commends itself by its brevity, elegance, and abundance of learned observations, seemed to us worthy to serve the convenience of many: hence it has been translated here, corrected and augmented from the observations of younger Jurisconsults, and also divided into periods to relieve the weakness of memory. We are certain that those who have made this shorter history familiar to themselves will handle the more prolix volumes of laws not without significant ease. This is followed by the CHRONOLOGY OF LAWS AND LAW, that is, a compendium of all the history of law and of laws, which has been compiled from the writings of Labittus, Antonius Augustinus, Freymonius, Contius, Giphanius, Freher, and others, and reduced to such an order that the time of laws enacted, of magistrates introduced, and the age of Jurisconsults and Legislators, may strike the eyes at the first glance. The consular fasti, which Onuphrius Panvinius, Pighius, Sigonius, Norisius, Baronius, Pagi, Reland, and other men most versed in antiquities have exhibited, have been corrected from their observations. We have perhaps done a not useless thing, as we hope, for those who, according to the opinion of supreme men in explaining laws, refer themselves to the state of the republic and to special facts sometimes unknown to an interpreter without the light of history, and wish to use this Ariadnean thread. The progress of laws and rights, their mutation, and their movement from the most ancient institutions to the most recent constitutions, are evident from these tables. For Roman jurisprudence, just as the republic, has suffered many vicissitudes. The foundations of laws were laid under the kings, who, by extending the power of masters and parents to the prejudice of those commanding, gave most ample material to later legislators for enacting laws by which powers clearly unbridled could be contained. With the kings ejected, royal institutions did not wither away, which for the most part had been introduced by the consent of the whole people and had passed as it were into its nature. Inconveniences of customary law pressed at this time upon the Romans, who, with the republic divided into parts and the legislative power quite doubtful, did not indeed neglect the care of laws, yet labored with a great inability to pass good laws. The laws which were requested pertained more to public than to private law, the source of which were the Laws of the Twelve Tables, regarding whose justice and prudence the Romans themselves, as Gellius attests, harbored most diverse opinions. Private law [was governed by] the opinions of Jurisconsults and the edicts of Magistrates.