Question

What is the Justinian Code?

Answer 1

Code of Justinian, Latin Codex Justinianus, formally Corpus Juris Civilis (“Body of Civil Law”), the collections of laws and legal interpretations developed under the sponsorship of the Byzantine emperor Justinian I from 529 to 565 CE. Strictly speaking, the works did not constitute a new legal code. Rather, Justinian’s committees of jurists provided basically two reference works containing collections of past laws and extracts of the opinions of the great Roman jurists. Also included were an elementary outline of the law and a collection of Justinian’s own new laws.

Answer 2

Justinian assumed the throne in 527 and the following year, on February 13, 528, he issued a homicidal constitution by the name of haec quae necessary because these are the first words that head his text. By this constitution designated a commission composed of ten members, chaired by Juan de Cappadocia and integrated by the famous Teófilo and the Tribal magister officiorum, to make a compilation of laws or imperial constitutions until then in force, which were fundamentally taken from the Gregorian codes, Hermogenian and Theodosian. After fourteen months of intense work, the Commission presented the project to the emperor, promulgated on April 7, 529 by the summa republicae constitution.