Excerpts from Moyle's INTRODUCTION to the 1912 Latin edition
I. Early history of the Roman constitution; the Twelve Tables
II. Pontifical jurisprudence; secularisation of the ius civile;
legal professionals; foundation of the empire
III. The classical period of Roman jurists
IV. Attempts to codify Roman law
V. Justinian's aims and achievement
* PROOEMIVM *
In the name of Our Lord,
Jesus Christ.
The Emperor Caesar Flavius Justinian,
conqueror of the Alamanni,
the Goths,
the Franks, the Germans, the Antes,
the Alani, the Vandals,
the Africans,
pious, prosperous, renowned,
victorious, and triumphant,
ever august,
To the youth desirous of studying the law,
Greeting!
The imperial majesty should be armed with laws as well as glorified with arms, that there may be good government in times both of war and of peace, and the ruler of Rome may not only be victorious over his enemies, but may show himself as scrupulously regardful of justice as triumphant over his conquered foes.
With deepest application and forethought, and by the blessing of God, we have attained both of these objects. The barbarian nations which we have subjugated know our valour, Africa and other provinces without number being once more, after so long an interval, reduced beneath the sway of Rome by victories granted by Heaven, and themselves bearing witness to our dominion. All peoples too are ruled by laws which we have either enacted or arranged.
Having removed every inconsistency from the sacred constitutions, hitherto inharmonious and confused, we extended our care to the immense volumes of the older jurisprudence; and, like sailors crossing the mid-ocean, by the favour of Heaven have now completed a work of which we once despaired.
When this, with God’s blessing, had been done, we called together that distinguished man Tribonian, master and ex-quaestor of our sacred palace, and the illustrious Theophilus and Dorotheus, professors of law, of whose ability, legal knowledge, and trusty observance of our orders we have received many and genuine proofs, and especially commissioned them to compose by our authority and advice a book of Institutes, whereby you may be enabled to learn your first lessons in law no longer from ancient fables, but to grasp them by the brilliant light of imperial learning, and that your ears and minds may receive nothing useless or incorrect, but only what holds good in actual fact. And thus whereas in past time even the foremost of you were unable to read the imperial constitutions until after four years, you, who have been so honoured and fortunate as to receive both the beginning and the end of your legal teaching from the mouth of the Emperor, can now enter on the study of them without delay.
After the completion therefore of the fifty books of the Digest or Pandects, in which all the earlier law has been collected by the aid of the said distinguished Tribonian and other illustrious and most able men, we directed the division of these same Institutes into four books, comprising the first elements of the whole science of law. In these the law previously obtaining has been briefly stated, as well as that which after becoming disused has been again brought to light by our imperial aid. Compiled from all the Institutes of our ancient jurists, and in particular from the commentaries of our Gaius on both the Institutes and the common cases, and from many other legal works, these Institutes were submitted to us by the three learned men aforesaid, and after reading and examining them we have given them the fullest force of our constitutions.
Receive then these laws with your best powers and with the eagerness of study, and show yourselves so learned as to be encouraged to hope that when you have compassed the whole field of law you may have ability to govern such portion of the state as may be entrusted to you.
Given at Constantinople the 21st day of November,
in the third consulate of the Emperor Justinian,
Father of his Country,
ever august.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
BOOK I.
Titles
I. Of Justice and Law
II. Of the law of nature, the law of nations, and the civil law
III. Of the law of persons
IV. Of men free born
V. Of freedmen
VI. Of persons unable to manumit, and the causes of their incapacity
VII. Of the repeal of the lex Fufia Caninia
VIII. Of persons independent or dependent
IX. Of paternal power
X. Of marriage
XI. Of adoptions
XII. Of the modes in which paternal power is extinguished
XIII. Of guardianships
XIV. Who can be appointed guardians by will
XV. Of the statutory guardianship of agnates
XVI. Of loss of status
XVII. Of the statutory guardianship of patrons
XVIII. Of the statutory guardianship of parents
XIX. Of fiduciary guardianship
XX. Of Atilian guardians, and those appointed under the lex Iulia et Titia
XXI. Of the authority of guardians
XXII. Of the modes in which guardianship is terminated
XXIII. Of curators
XXIV. Of the security to be given by guardians and curators
XXV. Of guardians' and curators' grounds of exemption
XXVI. Of guardians or curators who are suspected
BOOK II.
Titles I-IX
Titles X-XIX
Titles XX-XXV
Titles
I. Of the different kinds of Things
II. Of incorporeal Things
III. Of servitudes
IV. Of usufruct
V. Of use and habitation
VI. Of usucapion and long possession
VII. Of gifts
VIII. Of persons who may, and who may
not alienate
IX. Of persons through whom we acquire
X. Of the execution of wills
XI. Of soldiers’ wills
XII. Of persons incapable of making wills
XIII. Of the disinherison of children
XIV. Of the institution of the heir
XV. Of ordinary substitution
XVI. Of pupillary substitution
XVII. Of the modes in which wills become
void
XVIII. Of an unduteous will
XIX. Of the kinds of and differences
between heirs
XX. Of legacies
XXI. Of the ademption and transference
of legacies
XXII. Of the lex Falcidia
XXIII. Of trust inheritances
XXIV. Of trust bequests of single things
XXV. Of codicils
BOOK III.
Titles I-XII
Titles XIII-XXIX
Titles
I. Of the devolution of inheritances on intestacy
II. Of the statutory succession of agnates
III. Of the senatusconsultum Tertullianum
IV. Of the senatusconsultum Orfitianum
V. Of the succession of cognates
VI. Of the degrees of cognation
VII. Of the succession to freedmen
VIII. Of the assignment of freedmen
IX. Of possession of goods
X. Of acquisition by adrogation
XI. Of the adjudication of a deceased person's estate
to preserve gifts of liberty
XII. Of universal successions, now obsolete, in sale
of goods upon bankruptcy, and under the SC. Claudianum
XIII. Of obligations
XIV. Of real contracts, or the modes in which obligations
are contracted by delivery
XV. Of verbal obligation
XVI. Of stipulations in which there are two creditors or two debtors
XVII. Of stipulations made by slaves
XVIII. Of the different kinds of stipulations
XIX. Of invalid stipulations
XX. Of fidejussors or sureties
XXI. Of literal obligation
XXII. Of obligation by consent
XXIII. Of purchase and sale
XXIV. Of letting and hiring
XXV Of partnership
XXVI. Of agency
XXVII. Of quasi-contractual obligations
XXVIII. Of persons through whom we can acquire obligations
XXIX. Of the modes in which obligations are discharged
Titles
I. Of obligations arising from delict
II. Of robbery
III. Of the lex Aquilia
IV. Of injuries
V. Of quasi-delictal obligations
VI. Of actions
VII. Of contracts made with persons in power
VIII. Of noxal actions
IX. Of pauperies, or damage done by quadrupeds
X. Of persons through whom we can bring an action
XI. Of security
XII. Of actions perpetual and temporal, and which
may be brought by and against heirs
XIII. Of exceptions
XIV. Of replications
XV. Of interdicts
XVI. Of the penalties for reckless litigation
XVII. Of the duties of a judge
XVIII. Of public prosecutions
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Transcribed by Howard Sauertieg, November 2001
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