Irnerius and the imperial legislator, between Justinian and Henry V

Abstract

Summary Nowadays both the figure of Irnerius and his role in the revival of legal studies in the Middle Ages are being questioned under different profiles. Returning to examine the manuscript tradition, the author aims in this essay to show how fondamental was the Irnerius’ contribution in giving the subsequent school of Bologna a very specific direction. Philology was only a tool he used to demonstrate to his contemporaries the authority and ‘positive’ validity of the whole imperial legislation against the early medieval use of selecting only what was immediately useful for practice.