Galus and Justinian

I. Coke’s Institutes. Four volumes of commentaries upon various parts of the English law. Sir Edward Coke wrote four volumes of Institutes, as he was pleased to call them, though they have little of the institutional method to warrant such a title. The first volume is a very extensive commentary upon an excellent little treatise of tenures, compiled by Judge Littleton in the reign of Edw. IV. This comment is a rich mine of valuable common-law learning, collected and heaped together from the ancient reports and year-books, but greatly defective in method. The second volume is a comment on many old acts of parliament, without any systematic order; the third, a more methodical treatise on the pleas of the crown; and the fourth, an account of the several species of courts. These Institutes are usually cited thus: the firsf volume as Co. Lift., or 1 Inst; the second, third, and fourth as, 2, 3, or 4 Inst., without any author’s name. 1 Bla. Com. 72. II. Gaius’s Institutes. A tractate upon the Roman law, ascribed to Caius or Gaius. Of the personal history of this jurist nothing is known. Even the spelling of his name is matter of controversy, and he is known by no other title than Gaius, or Gaius. He is believed to have lived in the reign of Marcus Aurelius. The history of Gaius’s Institutes is remarkable. In 1816, Niebuhr was sent to Rome by the king of Prussia- On his way thither, he spent two days in the cathedral library of Verona, and at this time discovered these Institutes, which had been lost to the jurists of the middle ages. In 1817, the Royal Academy of Berlin charged Goeschen, Bekker, and Hollweg with the pleted edition, as ' far as the manuscript could be deciphered, to his fellow-jurists. It created an unusual sensation, and became a fraltful source of comment It formed a new era in the study of Roman law. It gave the modem jurist the signal advantage of studying the source of the Institutes of Justinian. It is believed by the best modem scholars that Gaius was the first original tractate of the kind, not being compiled from former publications. The language of Gaius is clear, terse, and technical, — evidently written by a master of law and a master of the Latin tongue. The Institutes were unquestionably practical. There is no attempt at criticism or philosophical discussion: the disciple of Sabinus Is content to teach law as he finds it. Its arrangement is solid and logical, and Justinian follows it with an almost servile Imitation. The best editions of Gaius are Goeschen’s 2d ed., Berlin, 1824, In which the text was again collated by Bluhnie, and the 3d ed. of Goeschen, Berlin, 1842, edited by Lachman from a critical revision by Goeschen which had been interrupted by his death. Gneist’s edition (1857) is a recension of all the German editions prior to that date. In France, Gaius attracted equal attention, and we have three editions and translations: Boulet, Paris, 1827; Demangeat, 18GG; and Pellat, 1870. In 1859, Francesco Lisl, a learned Italian scholar, published, at Bologna, a new edition of the first book of Gaius, with an Italian translation en regard. The edition Is accompanied and enriched by many valuable notes, printed in both Latin and Italian. See also Abdy & Walker; S. F. Harris; Mulrhead; T. L. Mears, Gaius, Poste’s translation, 1890.

Defined under Institutes in Bouvier's Law Dictionary and Concise Encyclopedia.