.mw-parser-output .hidden-begin{box-sizing:border-box;width:100%;padding:5px;border:none;font-size:95%}.mw-parser-output .hidden-title{font-weight:bold;line-height:1.6;text-align:left}.mw-parser-output .hidden-content{text-align:left}@media all and (max-width:500px){.mw-parser-output .hidden-begin{width:auto!important;clear:none!important;float:none!important))You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in German. (April 2021) Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the German article. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 9,094 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing German Wikipedia article at [[:de:Lex Romana Visigothorum]]; see its history for attribution. You should also add the template ((Translated|de|Lex Romana Visigothorum)) to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.
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Copy of Breviarium Alaricianum from Bibliothèque du Patrimoine de Clermont Auvergne Métropole, France, 10th century
The Visigothic Kingdom at roughly its greatest extent

The Breviary of Alaric (Breviarium Alaricianum or Lex Romana Visigothorum) is a collection of Roman law, compiled by Roman jurists and issued by referendary Anianus on the order of Alaric II, King of the Visigoths, with the approval of his bishops and nobles.[1] It was promulgated on 2 February 506,[2][3] the 22nd year of his reign.[4] It applied, not to the Visigothic nobles who lived under their own law, which had been formulated by Euric, but to the Hispano-Roman and Gallo-Roman population, living under Visigoth rule south of the Loire and, in Book 16, to the members of the trinitarian Catholic Church; the Visigoths were Arian and maintained their own clergy.

Significance

It is termed a code (codex), in the certificate of Anianus, the king's referendary, but unlike the code of Justinian, from which the writings of jurists were excluded, it comprises both imperial constitutions (leges) and juridical treatises (jura). From the circumstance that the Breviarium has prefixed to it a royal rescript (commonitorium) directing that copies of it, certified under the hand of Anianus, should be received exclusively as law throughout the kingdom of the Visigoths, the compilation of the code has been attributed to Anianus by many writers, and it is frequently designated the Breviary of Anianus (Breviarium Aniani).[5]

The code, however, appears to have been known amongst the Visigoths by the title of Lex Romana or Lex Theodosii, and it was not until the 16th century that the title of Breviarium was introduced to distinguish it from a recast of the code, the Lex Romana Curiensis which was introduced into northern Italy in the 9th century for the use of the Romans in Lombardy. This recast of the Visigothic code was published in the 18th century for the first time by Paolo Canciani in his collection of ancient laws entitled Barbarorum Leges Antiquae. Another manuscript of this Lombard recast of the Visigothic code was discovered by Gustav Friedrich Hänel in the library of St Gall.[5]

The chief value of the Visigothic code is as a source for Roman Law, including the first five books of the Theodosian Code (Codex Theodosianus),[6] five books of the Sententiae Receptae of Julius Paulus. Until the discovery of a manuscript in the chapter library in Verona, which contained the greater part of the Institutes of Gaius, it was the only known work containing the institutional writings of Gaius, an important ancient Roman jurist.[5]

The Breviary had the effect of preserving the traditions of Roman law in Aquitania and Gallia Narbonensis, which became both Provence and Septimania, thus reinforcing their sense of enduring continuity, broken in the Frankish north.[citation needed]

Contents

The Breviary of Alaric comprises:[5]

See also

References

  1. ^ Breviarium Alaricianum in A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities by William Smith, 1890. Retrieved 14 November 2013.
  2. ^ Encyclopaedia of Chronology: Historical and Biographical, by Bernard Bolingbroke Woodward, William Leist Readwin Cates
  3. ^ Frassetto, M. (2003). Encyclopedia of Barbarian Europe: Society in Transformation. ABC-CLIO. p. 24. ISBN 978-1-57607-263-9. Retrieved February 1, 2023.
  4. ^ Breviarium Alaricianum in A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities by William Smith, 1890. Retrieved 14 November 2013.
  5. ^ a b c d  One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Breviary of Alaric". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 4 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 505.
  6. ^ "Codex Theodosianus" in The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, Oxford University Press, New York & Oxford, 1991, p. 475. ISBN 0195046528
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