The ''Fragmenta Vaticana'' (Vatican Fragments) are the fragments of an anonymous
Latin
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
work on
Roman law
Roman law is the law, legal system of ancient Rome, including the legal developments spanning over a thousand years of jurisprudence, from the Twelve Tables (), to the (AD 529) ordered by Eastern Roman emperor Justinian I.
Roman law also den ...
written in the 4th century AD. Their importance to scholars stems from their being untouched by the
Justinianic reforms of the 6th century.
[Simon Corcoran (2012), "''Fragmenta Vaticana''", in ''The Encyclopedia of Ancient History'' (Wiley Online Library). ][Michael H. Hoeflich (1987), "Law Beyond Byzantium: The Evidence of Palimpsests", ''Zeitschrift Der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte. Germanistische Abteilung'' 104(1): 261–267, at 264–65. ]
The ''Fragmenta'' come from a legal miscellany, probably designed as a handbook for professional lawyers. Its content was arranged thematically. Seven of its headings can be identified, all dealing with
private law
Private law is that part of a legal system that governs interactions between individual persons. It is distinguished from public law, which deals with relationships between both natural and artificial persons (i.e., organizations) and the st ...
. Among its cited authorities are
Papinian
Aemilius Papinianus (; ; 142 CE–212 CE), simply rendered as Papinian () in English, was a celebrated Roman jurist, ''magister libellorum'', attorney general (''advocatus fisci'') and, after the death of Gaius Fulvius Plautianus in 205 CE, ...
,
Paul
Paul may refer to:
People
* Paul (given name), a given name, including a list of people
* Paul (surname), a list of people
* Paul the Apostle, an apostle who wrote many of the books of the New Testament
* Ray Hildebrand, half of the singing duo ...
and
Ulpian
Ulpian (; ; 223 or 228) was a Roman jurist born in Tyre in Roman Syria (modern Lebanon). He moved to Rome and rose to become considered one of the great legal authorities of his time. He was one of the five jurists upon whom decisions were to ...
. Several 3rd-century imperial
constitutions
A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organization or other type of entity, and commonly determines how that entity is to be governed.
When these princ ...
are quoted without comment, as well as
rescript
A rescript is a public government document. More formally, it is a document issued not on the initiative of the author, but in response to a question (usually legal) posed to the author. The word originates from replies issued by Roman emperors t ...
s of the emperors
Constantine I
Constantine I (27 February 27222 May 337), also known as Constantine the Great, was a Roman emperor from AD 306 to 337 and the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity. He played a Constantine the Great and Christianity, pivotal ro ...
and
Maximian
Maximian (; ), nicknamed Herculius, was Roman emperor from 286 to 305. He was ''Caesar (title), Caesar'' from 285 to 286, then ''Augustus (title), Augustus'' from 286 to 305. He shared the latter title with his co-emperor and superior, Diocleti ...
.
[
The manuscript transmission of the ''Fragmenta'' is associated with the ]Western Roman Empire
In modern historiography, the Western Roman Empire was the western provinces of the Roman Empire, collectively, during any period in which they were administered separately from the eastern provinces by a separate, independent imperial court. ...
, but that does not guarantee that the text was composed there.[ It was, however, most likely composed in ]Italy
Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...
around 320, while the Emperor Licinius
Valerius Licinianus Licinius (; Ancient Greek, Greek: Λικίνιος; c. 265 – 325) was Roman emperor from 308 to 324. For most of his reign, he was the colleague and rival of Constantine I, with whom he co-authored the Edict of Milan that ...
was still living. A later editor added material, probably in the 370s.[
The fragments come from an ]uncial
Uncial is a majuscule script (written entirely in capital letters) commonly used from the 4th to 8th centuries AD by Latin and Greek scribes. Uncial letters were used to write Greek and Latin, as well as Gothic, and are the current style for ...
copy of the 5th century, a manuscript now in the Vatican Library
The Vatican Apostolic Library (, ), more commonly known as the Vatican Library or informally as the Vat, is the library of the Holy See, located in Vatican City, and is the city-state's national library. It was formally established in 1475, alth ...
(Vat. Lat. 5766).[ The copyist added annotations noting the similarity between his text and the '']Codex Gregorianus
The ''Codex Gregorianus'' (Eng. Gregorian Code) is the title of a collection of constitutions (legal pronouncements) of Roman emperors over a century and a half from the 130s to 290s AD. It is believed to have been produced around 291–294 but th ...
'' and ''Codex Hermogenianus
The ''Codex Hermogenianus'' (Eng. Hermogenian Code) is the title of a collection of constitutions (legal pronouncements) of the Roman emperors of the first tetrarchy (Diocletian, Maximian Augusti, and Constantius and Galerius Caesars), mostly from ...
''.[ His manuscript was ]palimpsest
In textual studies, a palimpsest () is a manuscript page, either from a scroll or a book, from which the text has been scraped or washed off in preparation for reuse in the form of another document. Parchment was made of lamb, calf, or kid ski ...
ed at Bobbio Abbey
Bobbio Abbey (Italian: ''Abbazia di San Colombano'') is a monastery founded by Irish Saint Columbanus in 614, around which later grew up the town of Bobbio, in the province of Piacenza, Emilia-Romagna, Italy. It is dedicated to Saint Columbanus. ...
in the 8th century, when a theological work by John Cassian
John Cassian, also known as John the Ascetic and John Cassian the Roman (, ''Ioannes Cassianus'', or ''Ioannes Massiliensis''; Greek: Ίωάννης Κασσιανός ό Ερημίτης; – ), was a Christian monk and theologian celebrated ...
was written over the legal text. A fragment of the Theodosian Code
The ''Codex Theodosianus'' ("Theodosian Code") is a compilation of the laws of the Roman Empire under the Christian emperors since 312. A commission was established by Emperor Theodosius II and his co-emperor Valentinian III on 26 March 429 an ...
copied in the 7th century is also part of the undertext of Vat. Lat. 5766.[ The existence of the palimpsest was discovered by ]Angelo Mai
Angelo Mai (''Latin'' Angelus Maius; 7 March 17828 September 1854) was an Italian Cardinal and philologist. He won a European reputation for publishing for the first time a series of previously unknown ancient texts. These he was able to discov ...
in 1821. Today only 33 fragments, representing 28 leaves, survive from the original manuscript, which had at least 228 leaves.[
]
References
External links
Fragmenta Vaticana
Fragmenta Vaticana
in ''Brill's New Pauly
The Pauly encyclopedias or the Pauly-Wissowa family of encyclopedias, are a set of related encyclopedia
An encyclopedia is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge, either general or special, in a particular field o ...
'
{{in lang, deMore information at Earlier Latin Manuscripts
Roman law
4th-century books in Latin
Palimpsests