• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

Byzantine Legislation

The history of the legislation of the Eastern Empire is distinguished by three epochs associated with the names of (1) Justinian, (2) Leo III, (3) Basil I and Leo VI.

(1) The Justinianean legislation is thoroughly Roman in spirit, and inspired by pious adhesion to the traditions of the past; but it admitted modifications of the older law in accordance with tendencies which had been long since making themselves felt: consideration is accorded to principles of humanity in the laws affecting persons, and to the principle of public interest in the laws relating to things. Justinian not only sanctioned changes which time had brought about, like the mitigation of the strict patria potcsias and the greater independence of wives, but introduced a revolutionary change in the law of succession to property, abolishing inheritance by agnatio or relationship through males, and substituting inheritance by blood relationship whether through males or females.

(2) Justinian's reign was followed by a period in which juristic studies decayed. The seventh century, in which social order was profoundly disturbed, is a blank in legal history, and it would seem that the law of Justinian, though it had been rendered into Greek, almost ceased to be studied or understood. Practice at least was modified by principles in accord with the public opinion of Christian society and influenced by ecclesiastical canons. In a synod held at Constantinople in the reign of Justinian II, numerous rules were enacted, differing from the existing laws and based on ecclesiastical doctrine and Mosaic principles, and these were sanctioned as laws of the realm by the emperor.

Thus Church influence and the decline of Roman tradition, in a state which had become predominantly Greek, determined the character of the ensuing legislative epoch under the auspices of Leo III, whose law book (AD 740), written in Greek, marked a new era and reflected the changed ideas of the community. Entitled a "Brief Selection of Laws" and generally known as the Edoga, it may be described as a Christian law book. In regard to the patria potestas increased facilities are given for emancipation from paternal control when the son comes to years of discretion, and the paternal is to a certain extent replaced by a parental control over minors. The law of guardianship is considerably modified. The laws of marriage are transformed under the influence of the Christian conception of matrimony; the institution of contubinatus is abolished. Impediments to marriage on account of consanguinity and of spiritual relationship are multiplied. While Justinian regarded marriage as a contract, and therefore, like any other contract, dissoluble at the pleasure of the parties, Leo III accepted the Church view that it was an indissoluble bond.

(3) The last period of legislative activity under Basil I and Leo VI represents a reaction, in a certain measure, against the Ecloga and a return to Justinian. The Ecloga had met practical needs, but the Isaurian and Phrygian emperors had done nothing to revive legal study. To do so was the aim of Basil, and the revival could only be based on Justinianean law books or their Greek representatives. These books were now treated somewhat as Justinian and his lawyers had treated their own predecessors. A handbook of extracts from the Institutes, Digest and Code was issued in 870 ( "the law as it is"), to fulfil somewhat the same function as the Institutes. Then a collection of all the laws of the Empire was prepared by means of two commissions, and completed under Leo VI. It was entitled the Basilika. In many points (in civil, but not in criminal, law) the principles of the Ecloga are set aside in favour of the older jurisprudence. Thus the Justiniancan ordinances on the subject of divorce were revived, and there remained henceforward a contradiction between the civil and the canon law.

After this there was no legislation on a grand scale; but there was a great revival of legal study under Constantino IX, who founded a new law-school, and there were many learned specialists who wrote important commentaries, such as John Xiphitin (nth century), Theodore Balsamon (12th century), Harmenoputos (14th century). The civil code of Moldavia (published 1816-17) is a codification of Byzantine law- and modern Greece, although in framing its code it took the Napoleonic for its model, professes theoretically to base its civil law on the edicts of the emperors as contained in the Hexabiblos of Harmenopulos.

In the criminal law, a prominent feature is the substitution of mutilation of various kinds for the capital penalty. Death is retained for some crimes, such as murder and high treason; other offences were punished by amputation (of hand, nose, &c). This system (justified by the passage in the New Testament, "If thine eye offend thee," &c), though to modern notions barbaric, seemed a step in the direction of leniency; and it may be observed that the tendency to avoid capital punishment increased, and in the reign of John Comnenus it was never inflicted. (The same spirit, it may be noted, is apparent in the usual, though by no means invariable, practice of Byzantine emperors to render dethroned rivals or members of a deposed dynasty innocuous by depriving them of eyesight or forcing them to take monastic orders, instead of putting them to death.) The Church, which had its own system of penalties, exercised a great influence on the actual operation of criminal law, especially throggh the privilege of asylum (recognized by Justinian, but with many reserves and restrictions), which was granted to Christian churches and is admitted without exceptions in the Ecloga.