Codification of ius : the Digest

Between 530 and 533 A.D. Justinian produced through the Digest a grandiose codification of legal material coming from classical jurists’ works. The aim was to make available for use in the courts a selection of texts that was complete in itself and that overcame the controversial nature of classical jurisprudential Law. Through the inclusion of the texts in the Digest and the alterations carried out to make the contents more intelligible, to eliminate internal contrasts and repetitions and to bring the texts up to date, the statements of the jurists become themselves, in the view of Justinian, an expression of the imperial will: they cease to be an autonomous legal source and become imperial laws, in accordance with the ideology of the emperor’s legislative and interpretative monopoly.