Dominik Trump, Römisches Recht im Karolingerreich: Studien zur Überlieferungs- und Rezeptionsgeschichte der Epitome Aegidii. Quellen und Forschungen zum Recht im Mittelalter 13. Ostfildern: Jan Thorbecke Verlag, 2021, pp. 340.

Abstract

The study of legal practice, legal theory, and the issuing of law in early medieval Europe has seen a fundamental paradigm shift over the past three decades as scholars have rejected an older model of the Germanic invasions and/or migrations toppling Roman civilization in the lands of the erstwhile western Empire. It is now well understood that the so-called “barbarian law codes” were, in fact, composite bodies of law drawn from a variety of Roman sources, including not only the compendia produced under the auspices of Emperors Theodosius II (402‐450) and Justinian (527‐565), but also Roman provincial law and Roman military law. This new understanding of the enormous influence of Roman law, in its many forms, on early medieval legal thinking and practice was driven by a detailed re-evaluation of legal texts, which continues unabated to the present day. The volume under consideration here, the revised doctoral dissertation of Dominik Trump completed at the University of Cologne, offers a close examination of an epitome of the Lex Romana Visigothorum, issued by King Alaric II between 505‐507. This epitome, called the Epitome Aegidii after its first editor Pieter Gillis (1486‐1533), played a significant role in both legal studies and practice in the Regnum Francorum because of its great utility. As Trump observes, despite its brevity the Epitome Aegidii has the same range of sources as the Lex Romana. These are the Codex Theodosianus, novellae from after the reign of Theodosius, Pseduo-Pauline sentences, the Codex Gregorianus, the Codex Hermogenionus, and a short responsum from Aemilius Papinianus. The Epitome, therefore, provides yet another index of the value with which legal thinkers and practitioners in early medieval Europe regarded the choices made by the advisors of King Alaric when designing and executing his legal compendium.