Justinian’s Legal Code

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas brought together under Justinian I, Byzantine emperor in the 6th century AD, which were rediscovered in Western Europe in the Middle Ages and became very influential in the development of laws in many European nations and elsewhere.

→ Play on BBC Sounds website

Guests

• Caroline Humfress 4 episodes
  Professor of Medieval History at the University of St Andrews
• Simon Corcoran No other episodes
  Lecturer in Ancient History at Newcastle University
• Paul du Plessis No other episodes
  Senior Lecturer in Civil law and European legal history at the School of Law, University of Edinburgh

Reading list

• Law and Revolution: The Formation of the Western Legal Tradition
  Harold J. Berman (Harvard University Press, 1983) Google Books →
• Justinian's Institutes
  Peter Birks and Grant MacLeod (Duckworth, 1987) Google Books →
• The Creation of the Ius Commune: From Casus to Regula
  John Cairns and Paul Du Plessis (eds.) (Edinburgh University Press, 2010) Google Books →
• Emperor and Priest: The Imperial Office in Byzantium
  Gilbert Dagron (Cambridge University Press, 2003) Google Books →
• The Age of Justinian: The Circumstances of Imperial Power
  J. A. S. Evans (Routledge, 2000) Google Books →
• The Codex of Justinian, 3 vols.
  Bruce Frier (ed.) (Cambridge University Press, 2016)
• A Social History of Byzantium
  John Haldon (ed.) (Wiley-Blackwell, 2008) Google Books →
• The History of Byzantine and Eastern Canon Law to 1500
  Wilfried Hartmann and Kenneth Pennington (eds.) (Catholic University America Press, 2012) Google Books →
• The Cambridge Companion to Roman Law
  David Johnston (ed.) (Cambridge University Press, 2015) Google Books →
• Roman Law in Context
  David Johnston (Cambridge University Press, 1999) Google Books →
• European Legal History: A Cultural and Political Perspective
  Randall Lesaffer and Jan Arriens (Cambridge University Press 2009 ) Google Books →
• The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Justinian
  Michael Maas (ed.) (Cambridge University Press, 2005) Google Books →
• The Oxford History of Byzantium
  Cyril Mango (ed.) (Oxford University Press, 2002) Google Books →
• The Roman Empire Divided: 400 - 700
  John Moorhead (Longman, 2001) Google Books →
• The Sources of Roman Law: Problems and Methods for Ancient Historians
  O. F. Robinson (Routledge, 1996) Google Books →
• The Invention of Law in the West
  Aldo Schiavone, Jeremy Carden and Antony Shugaar (Harvard University Press, 2012) Google Books →
• Roman Law in European History
  Peter Stein (Cambridge University Press, 1999) Google Books →
• A History of the Byzantine State and Society
  Warren Treadgold (Stanford University Press, 1997) Google Books →
• The Digest of Justinian, 4 vols.
  Alan Watson (ed.) (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985) Google Books →

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Programme ID: b082j2q2

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/b082j2q2

Auto-category: 340 (Law)

Hello (First sentence from this episode)

Hello, the Emperor Justinian the Great ruled the Eastern Roman Empire for almost 40 years from Constantinople in the 6th century AD.