Pandect', Or Digesta - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition pandect-or-digesta

Definition :

Pandect', or Digesta. In the last month of the year AD 530, Justinian, by a constitution addressed to Tribonian, empowered him to name a commission for the purpose of forming a code out of the writings of those jurists who had enjoyed the Jus respondendi, or, as it is expressed by the emperor, 'antiquorum prudentium quibus auctoritatem conscribendarum interpretandarumque legum sacratissimi principes pr'buerunt.' The compilation, however, comprises extracts from some writers of the republican period, Const. Deo Auctore. Ten years were allowed for the completion of the work. The instructions of the emperor were, to select what was useful, to omit what was antiquated or superfluous, to avoid unnecessary repetitions, to get rid of contradictions, and to make such other changes as should produce out of the mass of ancient juristical writings a useful and complete body of law (jus Antiquum);--the work was to be named Digesta, a Latin term indicating an arrangement of materials; or Pandect', a Greek word expressive of the comprehensiveness of the work. It was also declared that no commentaries should be written on this compilation, but per-mission was given to make paratitla, or references to parallel passages, with a short statement of their contents (Const. Deo. Auctore, s. 12). It was also declared that abbreviations (sigla) should not be used for forming the text of the Digest. The work was completed in three years (17 Cal. Jan. AD 533), as appears by a constitution, both in Greek and Latin, which confirmed the work, and gave to it legal authority, Smith's Dict. of Antiq.

The number of writes from whose works extracts were made is thirty-nine.

Justinian's plan embraced two principal works, one of which was to be a selection from the jurists, and the other from the Constitutions. The first, the Pandects, was very appropriately intended to con-tain the foundation of the law; it was the first work since the date of the Twelve Tables, which in itself, and without supposing the existence of any other, might serve as a central point of the whole body of the law. It may be properly called a code, and the first complete code since the time of the Twelve Tables, though a large part of its contents is not law, but is dogmatic, or is taken up with the investigation of particular cases. Instead of the insufficient rules of Valentinian III., the excerpts in the Pandects are taken immediately from the writings of the jurists in great numbers, and arranged according to their matter. The code also has a more comprehensive plan than the earlier codes, since it comprises both rescripts and edicts. These two works, the Pandects and the Code, ought properly to be considered as the completion of Justinian's designs. The Institutiones cannot be viewed as a third work; independent of both, it serves as an introduction to them, or as a manual. Lastly, the Novell' are single and subsequent additions or alterations, and it is merely an accidental circumstance that a third edition of the code was not made at the end of Justinian's reign, which would have comprised the Novell' that had a permanent application, Savigny, as quoted in Smith's Dict. of Antiq., voce 'Pandect'.'

The Pandects are divided into fifty Books, each book containing several Titles, divided into Laws, and the Laws generally into several Parts or Para-graphs.

In order to prevent the circulation of incorrect editions, three Ultramontane and three Citramon-tane scholars were chosen every year in the University of Bologna, and termed PECIARII; they were excused from all other munera publica, and held their sessions once a week for the purpose of correcting imperfect copies in possession of circulating libraries; a fine of five soldi was imposed on all possessors of defective books, together with the expenses of correction, for which purpose every doctor or scholar was obliged to lend his own perfect copy, under pain of a fine of five lire; hence the term exempla correcta et bene emendata. Books thus corrected were advertised by the bedel, 1 Colqu. R.C.L. 67-73.