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We have an index of reviews of books relating to ancient law , and Roman law in particular, that have appeared in the on-line reviews journal, The Bryn Mawr Classical Review and its sister, The Medieval Review.

Journals and Series wholly or partially devoted to Roman Law or the Civilian tradition

Journals with free access to the full text of articles

  1. Byblos 1 (1999) to 12 (2010) [contains book reviews]
  2. Diritto@Storia Quaderni 1 (2002) - 7 (2008)
  3. Ius Antiquum 1 (1996) - 21 (2008)
  4. Pomoerium 1 (1994) - 6 (2007/8)
  5. Rechtsgeschichte 1 (2002) - 24 (2016)
  6. Revue Internationale des Droits de l'Antiquité 3me sér. 44 (1997) - 59 (2012)
  7. Rivista di Diritto Romano 1 (2001) - 11 (2011) [most articles are available on-line]
  8. Roman Legal Tradition 1 (2002)- 11 (2015) [fully and freely available on-line]
  9. Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte: Kanonistische Abteilung 1 (1911) - 9 (1919) plus Generalregister 1-25 (see also contents lists below)
  10. Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte: Romanistische Abteilung 1=14 (1880) - 40=53 (1919) plus Generalregister 1-50 (see also contents lists below)
  11. Zeitschrift für geschichtliche Rechtswissenschaft 1 (1815) - 15 (1848/50)
  12. Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 73 (1988) - 133 (2000) (but also with full index for entire series up to the present) [requires Adobe Acrobat Reader 4.0]
  13. Zeitschrift für Rechtsgeschichte 1 (1861/62) - 13 (1876/78) plus Register 1-13 (see also contents list below)

The following have on-line access to tables of contents

  1. Annaeus (Anales de la Tradición Romanística) 1 (2004) - 2 (2005)
  2. Atti dell'Accademia Romanistica Costantiniana 1 (1973) - 16 (2007)
  3. Bullettino dell'Istituto di Diritto Romano 72 (1969) - 96/97 (1993/1994)
  4. Bulletin of Medieval Canon Law 1 (1955) to 16 (1970) and n.s. 1 (1971) to 28 (2008)
  5. Cuadernos de Historia del Derecho 1 (1994) - 8 (2001)
  6. Fontes Minores 1 (1976) to 11 (2005) [contents not currently available]
  7. Fundamina 1 (1992) - 6 (2000) [incomplete]
  8. Index 1 (1970) - 28 (2000)
  9. Initium: Revista catalana d'historia del dret 1 (1996) - 13 (2008); for at Dialnet for 1 (1996) - 16 (2011)
  10. Iura 48 (1997) - 53 (2002) [not currently available]
  11. Ius Commune 1 (1967) - 28 (2001) (alternative version here). This journal was merged with the "Rechtshistorisches Journal" to form the new journal "Rechtsgeschichte" in 2002.
  12. The Journal of Juristic Papyrology 1 (1945) - 11/12 (1958), 14 (1962) - 16/17 (1971), 21 (1991), and 31 (2001). There also is a composite article index for all issues.
  13. The Journal of Legal History 1 (1980) - 26 (2005). See also the publisher's site (full access by subscription only).
  14. Labeo 11 (1965) - 48 (1992)
  15. Law and History Review 17 (1999) - 27 (2009); plus composite index for vols. 1 - 14 [not currently available]; alternative version for 8 (1990) - 20 (2002) available here
  16. Minima Epigraphica et Papyrologica I/1 (1998) - III/4 (2000); MEP IV/5 (2001); MEP V-VI/7-8 (2002/2003); MEP VII-VIII/9-10 (2004/2005); MEP IX/11 (2006);MEP X/12 (2007); MEP XI/13 (2008); MEP XII-XV/14-17 (2012)
  17. Pandectas 1 (1999) -
  18. Rechtsgeschichte 1 (2002) - 19 (2011) [full text access up to vol. 13]
  19. Rechtshistorisches Journal 1 (1982) - 20 (2001). This journal was merged with Ius Commune to form the new journal Rechtsgeschichte in 2002.
  20. Revue historique de droit français et étranger 72 (1996) - 89 (2011)
  21. Revue Internationale des Droits de l'Antiquité 3rd series 12 (1965) - 45 (1998); RIDA 3rd ser. 44 (1997) - 58 (2011)
  22. Seminarios Complutenses de Derecho Romano 1 - 11
  23. Studia et Documenta Historiae et Iuris 1 (1935) - 35 (1969); SDHI 36 (1970) - 52 (1986); SDHI 53 (1987) - 66 (2000)
  24. Subseciva Groningana: Studies in Roman and Byzantine Law 1 (1984) - 8 (2009)
  25. Tijdschrift voor Rechtsgeschiedenis (= Legal History Review or Revue d'Histoire du Droit) 1 (1918/1919) - 25 (1957);TR 26 (1958) - 50 (1982); TR 51 (1983) - 69 (2001). Published by Brill since 2010, with subscription access to entire run from 1918 to present via Ingenta.
  26. Zeitschrift für Rechtsgeschichte 1 (1861) - 13 (1878)
  27. Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte: Romanistische Abteilung 1 (1880) - 20 (1899); ZRG:RA 21 (1900) - 34 (1913); ZRG:RA 35 (1914) - 48 (1928); ZRG:RA 49 (1929) - 70 (1953); ZRG:RA 71 (1954) - 93 (1976); ZRG:RA 94 (1977) - 122 (2005)
  28. Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte: Kanonistische Abteilung 1 (1911) - 25 (1936); ZRG:KA 26 (1937) - 50 (1964); ZRG:KA 51 (1965) - 91 (2005)

General Sites and Pre-Justinianic Sources

Tony Honoré Ernest Metzger

  1. Ernest Metzger (Douglas Professor of Civil Law, Glasgow) maintains an extensive web-site, Iuscivile.com, devoted to Roman law and the civilian tradition. This includes an on-line version of Tony Honoré's palingenesia of Latin private rescripts, AD 193-305: From the Accession of Pertinax to the Abdication of Diocletian that accompanied the publication of the second edition of Emperors and Lawyers (Oxford, 1994). He has also done the same with Honoré's palingenesia of the constitutions of the Theodosian age from Law in the Crisis of Empire 379-455 AD: The Theodosian Dynasty and its Quaestors (Oxford University Press, 1998).
  2. Tony Honoré's own web-site includes on-line versions of several recent papers, mostly relating to the compilation of the Digest.
  3. The Accademia Romanistica Costantiniana based at the University of Perugia and with an office in Spello, concentrates on the study of Roman law from Constantine onward. It sponsors a series of biennial convegni (usually held in Spello and Perugia), each devoted to a different theme in the law of late antiquity. The most recent, Convegno XX , was held June 2011. The Convegni are currently published by and available from Aracne Editrice , the most recent being Convegno XVII (held in 2005; publ. 2010). The ARC is also sponsoring a long-term palingenesia of late antique legislation, with various volumes published by Giuffrè of Milan in the series Materiali per una palingenesi delle costituzioni tardo-imperiali. The two principal volumes of the palingenesia so far published are: for the sons of Constantine 337-361 [Series 2 vol. 2, Cuneo, 1997] and for Valentinian and Valens 364-375 [Series 2 vol. 4, Pergami, 1993]. Also very useful is the volume of Constantinian texts from literary sources [Series 1 vol. 3, Silli, 1987]. Details are available on-line of preparatory work for the palingenesia of laws of Theodosius I, using initially the texts of 375-395 in the Theodosian Code Books I-IV.
  4. The most comprehensive set of on-line Roman legal texts is maintained by Alexander Koptev with Yves Lassard as The Roman Law Library, partly mirrored on Koptev's Russian site. These include most of the Justinianic and Pre-Justinianic texts. Apart from the late antique codifications discussed below, he covers Republican material such as the Twelve Tables and Cicero's De Legibus, and gives extensive examples of surviving leges and senatus consulta. He also inludes all the major surviving legal works from the second to sixth centuries AD. These include the Institutes of Gaius, (with the Visigothic Epitome and Augustodunum fragments), the Sentences of Paul, the Regulae of Ulpian, the Fragmenta Vaticana , the Mosaicarum et Romanarum Legum Collatio , the Consultatio Veteris Cuiusdam Iurisconsulti , the Lex Romana Burgundionum and the Edict of Theoderic. The Grenoble site also has extensive translations in French and English. While the latter are too often the unreliable Scott versions (The Civil Law, 1932), more welcome are Poste (1904) for Gaius's Institutes and Moyle (1913) for Justinian's Institutes.
  5. For the Theodosian Code, Koptev also provides a full version of the Code, which includes the Gesta Senatus, the Sirmondian Constitutions, as well as the post-Theodosian Novels. The on-line library of the Ad Fontes Academy of North Virginia provides the Theodosian Code Books 1-16 only, without the Gesta Senatus, the Sirmondians, or the Novels. It also has the Seckel & Kuebler edition of Gaius's Institutes . A further electronic version of the Theodosiani libri XVI cum constitutionibus Sirmondianis et Leges Novellae ad Theodosianum pertinentes, edd. Theodor Mommsen & Paul M. Meyer (Berlin 1905) originally from the Oxford Text Archive is available on this site in an HTML version (books 1 to 8 only). The two principal surviving manuscripts of the Code now reside in the Bibliothèque Nationale (R = Par. Lat. 9643, Books 6-8) and the Vatican Library (V = Vaticanus reginae 886, Books 9-16). The great edition of the Code by Gothofredus (Jacques Godefroy, 1587-1652) with his invaluable commentary, which was published posthumously in 1665, is now available in a scanned version on-line from the Bibliothèque Patrimoniale Virtuelle (a collaborative venture by the universities in the Lille Nord/Pas-de-Calais region). The copy used is the 6 volume Leipzig reprint of 1736-1745 held in the library of Université Lille 3, donated by the descendants of Gothofredus's brother, who were prominent in Lille from the XVII to the XIX centuries.
  6. Some on-line Roman legal texts appear amongst Ulrich Harsch of Augsburg's Bibliotheca Augustana: Latin Texts, including the XII Tables, the edictum adversus latinos rhetores , senatus consultum de Bacchanalibus , Gaius, and Diocletian's Edictum de Pretiis Rerum Venalium (currently only the preamble and chapters 1-10, but with pleasing illustrations). On a lighter note, there is the Testamentum Porcelli (The Piglet's Will). A collection of classical and pre-classical texts specifically relating to the status of women appear in Mary Lefkowitz and Maureen Fant's site on the legal status of women in the Roman World (University of Kentucky, USA). A collection of ancient legal texts, mostly deriving from literary rather than documentary sources, is maintained by Paul Halsall of Fordham University (USA), as part of his Internet Ancient History Sourcebook. Similarly, there are some useful literary texts relating to Roman law or imperial pronouncements in the Ad Fontes Academy library: the Lugdunum Tablet (Claudius' speech on allowing Gauls to enter the senate), Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae (currently Books 1-11, 13, and 20), the Notitia Dignitatum , Cassiodorus, selection of the Epistulae Austrasicae (sixth century correspondence, mostly between Merovingian royalty and the imperial court), and Isidore of Seville's Etymologiae Book 5. For laws attested from epigraphic and papyrological sources, there is an extensive list of imperial constitutions compiled by Gianfranco Purpura. It is also worth consulting the Oxford Centre for the Study of Ancient Documents and, specifically the pages for the Oxyrhynchus Papyri and British Epigraphy Society.

Justinianic Roman Law

Two sites that focus specifically on study of Roman Law in its Justinianic phase and after are:

(1) Ernie Metzger's page devoted to emendations to the English translation of the Justinianic Digest edited by Alan Watson

(2) the collection of Codex and Digest texts with glosses to help law students, being assembled by Thomas Rüfner as part of his Ius Romanum site, which includes many useful links and which is itself part of the ambitious Juristisches Internetprojekt Saarbrücken of the Universität des Saarlandes - Institut für Rechtsinformatik.

The most extensive on-line texts of Justinian's legal output can be found in The Roman Law Library site under the title Corpus Iuris Civilis (not currently available on the Russian site), although this excludes all material in Greek. This includes the Institutes , the Digest (plus the introductory constitutions), the Code (plus the introductory constitutions), and most of the Novels in differing Latin versions (thus either the original Latin text or the ancient literal Latin translation [between them making up the Authenticum] or modern Latin translations [from Schoell/Kroll, Corpus Iuris Civilis III]). All the Novels are now included except nos. 136-7 and 163, and Edicts 7, 9 and 13. The Epitome of Julian is also available in a version taken over from the Volterra site. The Institutes, Codes and Digest (minus the introductory constitutions and Greek) are also available via the Ad Fontes Academy's Latin Library under their entry for Justinian.

Fred Blume's translations into English of the Justinian Code (retyped and uploaded as pdf files by Tim Kearley) and of Justinian's Novels (scans of the original typescript) are now availabe on the site of the law library at the University of Wyoming. A revised and edited version of the Code translation is to be published by Cambridge University Press.

In his Internet Medieval Sourcebook, Paul Halsall (formerly of Fordham University, USA) has a page devoted to Medieval Legal History (with the texts of sources on Roman law, Canon law including Oecumenical Councils, Germanic laws (including Scott's translation of the Lex Visigothorum ), European laws and law codes, English law, Jewish law, and Islamic law), which includes selections from the Corpus Iuris Civilis , including Marriage Laws from the Digest and Codex. The Constitution Society now hosts an on-line version of S.P.Scott's The Civil Law (1932), his seventeen volume translation of Roman law texts (principally the Justinianic corpus). However, this work is not generally well regarded, especially as it used editions already out-of-date in his own day. There are far superior translations now published for the material he covers.