Law in the Crisis of Empire, 379-455 AD

Download or read book Law in the Crisis of Empire, 379-455 AD written by Tony Honoré and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This new book by an eminent legal scholar and author can be described in a number of ways: a work of reference; an essay in the study of style; a contribution to the prosopography of the late Roman quaestorship; and a reflection on the fall of the western (and on the survival of the eastern) Roman empire. Using an innovative method of analysis--already successfully employed in his acclaimed Emperors and Lawyers (OUP 1994)--the author examines the laws of a crucial phase of the later Roman empire (379-455 AD), a period during which the west collapsed while the east persisted. He allots the laws to their likely drafters and shows why the eastern Theodosian Code (429-438 AD), intended to restore the legal and administrative unity of the Roman empire, came too late to save the west. The book includes a Palingenesia--as stored on an accompanying floppy disk--allowing scholars to read the primary texts chronologically and judge the soundness of the arguments advanced.