Many years ago, in 2011, the publishing house Brill, on the recommendation of Wolfram Brandes, proposed to Eleftheria Papagianni to coordinate, within the framework of the Companion series, the publication of a book on Byzantine law. The proposal was certainly considered interesting and undoubtedly honourable and was immediately accepted. But the first issue that needed to be clarified and was the subject of discussion between the editor to be and the then representatives of the publishing house was the way in which Byzantine law was to be approached conceptually. Would the object of research be the rules of substantive law, as they were formed after AD 330, when historical developments brought Roman law into contact with Hellenistic legal tradition and Christian teaching, or the texts handed down from the past and adapted to the new conditions, as well as the new legislation produced by the Christian emperors “of the Romans” who were now based in Constantinople?
The answer was easily given, because it is well known in the scholarly world that, even today, the state of research on the approach to the Byzantine legal texts from the point of view of the distinction between the law of persons, the law of things, and the law of actions is far from giving us a clear picture, so there was no solid basis from which a short companion could be derived. On the other hand, already from about the middle of the 20th century there had been a revival of interest in Europe in the study of the sources of Byzantine law, with the aim of obtaining modern, reliable critical editions, since the prevailing view in the community of specialists was that conclusions about the substantive law in force in the Eastern Empire could only be drawn through the restoration of reliable texts and any relationships between them.
The interest of legal historians of the 20th century in the study of Byzantine legal sources has been reflected in notable studies such as those of Peter Pieler, Nicolaas van der Wal/Jan H.A. Lokin, and Spyros Troianos, the latter having in fact published the third edition of The Sources of Byzantine Law (in Greek) in 2011. However, the existence of these important aids was not considered sufficient reason not to publish a Companion with a similar subject matter. The first reason was, of course, that no product of the human mind can be absolutely identified with another, and especially in such a broad academic field as the history of law. On the other hand, with the exception of the book by Sp. Troianos – which was made inaccessible to younger scholars in particular by the Greek language in which it was written – the rest were old enough not to include the latest developments in the field, and none of them were written in English, a language that in the 21st century tends to prevail even in the field of humanities.1
The starting point for the writing of the Companion would therefore be the Byzantine legal texts, which would also be examined as “mirrors” of the historical and social developments of the period. The question of the chronological scope of the research, i.e. whether it would cover all the centuries for which the term “Byzantium” can be used, i.e. from the foundation of Constantinople in 330 until its fall in 1453, was the subject of more discussion. As to its starting point, both the future editor and the then representatives of Brill agreed that the year 330 was the appropriate starting point for presenting the evolutionary course of Byzantine law from its Roman foundation to its “transformation” into the reformed law of the Eastern Empire. By contrast, there was no immediate consensus as to the end point. Finally, after 1453 was rejected – since it was considered to require a great expansion of the field of research, which was deemed incompatible with a Companion – 1056 was preferred, i.e. the end of the Macedonian dynasty’s rule.
This rather unconventional choice was made on the basis that from 330 to 1056 the transformation of the law inherited from Rome into a linguistically Hellenized law, which had adopted elements from the Hellenistic tradition and had been influenced by the Christian religion, can be defined. This process is characterized by the constant codification and recoding of provisions, beginning in the 5th century and ending with the completion of the Basilica. The Justinianic Corpus iuris civilis certainly occupies a central position, both as the concluding phase in the development of Roman law, with the Code and the Digest and as the starting point for the new law through the hermeneutic teachings of the antecessores and the Justinianic Novels. At the same time, the innovations in the legislation of the 8th century, the ecclesiastical law, and the most important jurisprudential evidence of the period are presented in this Companion.
From the end of the 11th century, the empire, which had reached the peak of its prosperity and power, began to decline in a silent, gradual but steady way, while undergoing serious changes in the field of public administration and the administration of justice. The role of the Church and its influence on law, especially after the Latin era, is also greatly expanded. It is also noteworthy that there is no longer any codification of the law on the initiative of the state and all collections of provisions, including the famous Hexabiblos, are the work of private individuals. These brief remarks do not imply a value judgement that the importance of the last Byzantine centuries for the science of the history of law is lagging behind. On the contrary, their interest is very great, but their distinctive character deserves to be highlighted in books devoted exclusively to these developments, something which had just begun when the first discussions for the Companion took place.2
After the framework of the research and the way of approaching the texts had been defined, a multinational group of authors was formed, which was not only bound together by the cultivation of Byzantine law but also by personal ties, which certainly made cooperation easier, and consisted of: Thomas E. van Bochove, Wolfram Brandes, Fausto Goria, Andreas Gkoutzioukostas, Wolfgang Kaiser, Jan H.A. Lokin† (2022), Ruth Macrides† (2019), Kelly Bourdara, Peter Pieler† (2018), Constantine Pitsakis† (2012), Dieter Simon, Bernard H. Stolte, and Spyros Troianos† (2024). The omens were therefore favourable for the early completion of a remarkable book. Unfortunately, however, every optimistic prediction was denied.
Already in the summer of 2012, there was the unexpected death of C. Pitsakis, whose two contributions were covered by F. Goria and Sp. Troianos. Thus, there was no delay in finding another author and keeping to the original schedule, which foresaw delivery of the manuscript in March 2016, seemed feasible. However, for reasons unrelated to the editor or the authors, the project was frozen for years. There were some sporadic and fruitless contacts between Eleftheria Papagianni and representatives of the publisher in 2017 and 2019, but it was not until early 2021 that a systematic effort to complete the project began. Of course, the writing team could not remain the same. In addition to those who had passed away, Wolfgang Kaiser, Jan H.A. Lokin, and Bernard H. Stolte unfortunately had to be replaced for various serious reasons, while Dieter Simon reduced his two original contributions to one. Thus, the writing team was enriched with Zachary Chitwood, Giuseppe Falcone, Vasileios-Alexandros Kollias, Alexander Liarmacopulus, Valerio Massimo Minale, Kalliope Papakonstantinou, Daphne Penna, Peter Sarris, and Marios Tantalos.
In fact, these changes meant a new beginning for the project, because apart from the effort to find new authors, those who had sent texts in the initial phase of the project had to be informed about the developments, in order to update or possibly revise them. It was precisely at this crucial stage that the publisher proposed the involvement of a co-editor. The proposal was accepted with great pleasure by Eleftheria Papagianni in 2021, and Dr. Daphne Penna, assistant Professor at the University of Groningen, an old student and dear friend of the primary editor, was chosen for this role, without whose participation it is doubtful that we would have a complete work available today.
Following this adventurous path – and given that the literature on the sources of Byzantine law has been considerably enriched in the last decade3 – one might think that the preparation of a Companion on the subject would be of little value. There have indeed been moments when the editors themselves have had some misgivings about this, but despite the misfortunes and losses the fact is, that a group of scholars has still been assembled and has responded with pleasure to the invitation to write on Byzantine law and its sources and has produced some remarkable texts. This is irrefutable proof that the discipline is always alive and kicking, that it is always a source of interest for new scholars, and that it always provides a place to house works with a common starting point but certainly with a different character.
This reality is certainly the achievement of the European legal historians who, after the Second World War, bent again over the law of the Eastern Roman Empire, some of whom have taken part in the successive phases of this textbook. Even those who ultimately failed to produce a text are, after all, delivering their scholarly legacy here through their students. Fully aware of this fact, the editors therefore respectfully and lovingly dedicate the Companion to Byzantine Law to their first and common teacher, the late Spyros Troianos, Professor of the University of Athens, who, although he was the first to send his contributions, passed away in January 2024 without having seen them published.
Eleftheria Papagianni and Daphne Penna
See P.E. Pieler, “Byzantinische Rechtsliteratur”, in H. Hunger, Die hochsprachliche profane Literatur der Byzantiner, vol. 2 (Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft, 12.5.2 = Byzantinisches Handbuch, 5.2), Munich 1978 (C.H. Beck), pp. 341–480 (the work was translated into Greek, with reference to the more recent scientific developments by E. Papagianni and Sp. Τroianos, see H
See L. Bénou, Pour une nouvelle Histoire du droit byzantin. Théorie et pratique juridiques au XIVe siècle, Paris 2011 (Editions de l’Association Pierre Belon).
Spyros Troianos’s work has been translated into Italian (see Spyros Troianos Le Fonti del diritto Bizantino, traduzione a cura di Pierangelo Buongiorno, Turin 2015) and into German (see Spyros Troianos, Die Quellen des Byzantinischen Rechts, translated by Dieter Simon and Silvia Neye, Berlin 2017), while very recent is the book by Daphne Penna and Roos Meijering, A Sourcebook on Byzantine Law. Illustrating Byzantine Law through the Sources, Leiden 2022.