TheBreviary of Alaric (Breviarium Alaricianum orLex Romana Visigothorum) is a collection ofRoman law, compiled by Roman jurists and issued byreferendaryAnianus on the order ofAlaric 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 theirown law, which had been formulated byEuric, but to theHispano-Roman andGallo-Roman population, living under Visigoth rule south of theLoire and, in Book 16, to the members of thetrinitarianCatholic Church; the Visigoths wereArian and maintained their own clergy.
It is termed a code (codex), in the certificate ofAnianus, the king's referendary, but unlike the code ofJustinian, from which the writings of jurists were excluded, it comprises both imperial constitutions (leges) and juridical treatises (jura). From the circumstance that theBreviarium
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 theBreviary of Anianus (Breviarium Aniani).[5]
The code, however, appears to have been known amongst the Visigoths by the title ofLex Romana orLex Theodosii, and it was not until the 16th century that the title ofBreviarium was introduced to distinguish it from a recast of the code, theLex Romana Curiensis which was introduced into northern Italy in the 9th century for the use of the Romans inLombardy. 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 entitledBarbarorum Leges Antiquae. Another manuscript of this Lombard recast of the Visigothic code was discovered byGustav Friedrich Hänel in the library ofSt Gall.[5]
The chief value of the Visigothic code is as a source for Roman Law, including the first five books of theTheodosian Code (Codex Theodosianus),[6] five books of theSententiae Receptae of Julius Paulus. Until the discovery of a manuscript in thechapter library inVerona, which contained the greater part of theInstitutes of Gaius, it was the only known work containing the institutional writings ofGaius, an important ancient Roman jurist.[5]
TheBreviary had the effect of preserving the traditions of Roman law inAquitania andGallia Narbonensis, which became bothProvence andSeptimania, thus reinforcing their sense of enduring continuity, broken in theFrankish north.[citation needed]
TheBreviary of Alaric comprises:[5]
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Breviary of Alaric".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 4 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 505.| International | |
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