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The number of sites devoted to Roman law has increased dramatically over the last few years. While the increase in information is to be welcomed, information on the Internet can be difficult to pin down, especially when sites move and hyperlinks change. In order to prevent this part of the online resource centre from becoming a list of broken hyperlinks, I have limited my focus here to a number of reputable sites that specialise in the collection of information about Roman law on the Internet. These hyperlinks also seem stable and have stood the test of time.
Sites devoted to Roman law
The following sites are mainly devoted to primary and secondary source material.
- Roman law resources:
- The online medieval sourcebook:
- The Roman law library:
- The Projet Volterra:
- A private site:
- The Latin library
- The Codex and Novels of Justinian in translation online
A comprehensive web site hosted by the University of Glasgow. In the words of its creator, Professor E. Metzger: "This site provides information on Roman law sources and literature, the teaching of Roman law, and the persons who study Roman law. The site is available in English and German."
This web site will appeal to both students and teachers of Roman law. Its clear layout makes it a joy to use and it is filled with useful information. The section labelled "notices" provides information about forthcoming conferences and seminars on Roman law and legal history. The "literature" section is devoted to primary and secondary sources on Roman law as well as teaching materials available online. It also lists many of the current research projects in the field of Roman law as well as book reviews and online bibliographies.
www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook-law.html
This site contains an array of Roman legal texts in translation. The selection focuses on the Roman law of marriage and its interpretation in medieval learned law, but it is sufficiently comprehensive to be of general interest to scholars of Roman law. A search on the main web site of the Internet Medieval Sourcebook using the keywords "Roman Law" also identified links to other sites.
http://droitromain.upmf-grenoble.fr
This site contains online texts of the most important Roman legal sources. These include the Twelve Tables, diverse laws and Senatusconsulta as well as an online version of the Codex Theodosianus. Texts of late-Roman codifications such as the Edictum Theoderici and the Lex Romana Burgundionum are particularly useful.
In the words of this site's creators: "The general aims of the Projet Volterra are to promote the study of Roman legislation in its full social, political and legal context. As part of this, the area of Roman imperial legal pronouncements was identified as one in which current scholarship was less than adequately served in terms of Regesten, repertoria and bibliographical aids. Within this field the area of later imperial legislation was felt to be particularly poorly exploited by scholars in general. It was decided that access to the material would be most satisfactorily facilitated by the production of a database in an electronic medium which would act not only as a Regest but also contain the basic texts of imperial legal pronouncements (where the ipsissima verba of the issuer(s) survive) from whatever provenance, be it an epigraphic, papyrological, juristic or literary source, details relating to each text's transmission (including their fate during successive codifications), the texts of ancient scholia upon them and an annotated bibliography of relevant modern scholarly output."
Apart from the impressive results that the Projet Volterra has already produced, its web site also contains an extensive overview of Other Online Resources for Roman law. This section of the site provides a list of journals fully or partially devoted to Roman law of which either full-text articles or tables of contents of past issues are available via their web sites. It also contains a survey of other web sites devoted to Justinianic and post-Justinianic Roman law.
http://www.rechtshistorie.nl/roman-law
This focuses on the history and structure of Roman law. It contains a comprehensive overview of sources and standard secondary literature on Roman law. The list of web sites devoted to Roman law is particularly useful.
This is an online digital library featuring the works, in full-text, of nearly all the Latin authors. It also contains the entire Corpus Iuris Civilis.
http://www.uwyo.edu/lawlib/blume-justinian/
This is an utterly fascinating site containing one of the best translations of the Codex and Novels into English available online. A printed translation based on that of Blume is rumoured to be in press with Cambridge University Press.