Abstract
It is the purpose of this note to point out a few aspects in which Byzantine legal literature differs from its Western medieval counterpart. It is tempting to make such a comparison, as both East and West started with the same body of material, namely the Justinian legislation comprising the Institutes, Digest, Code and Novels. I realize that in doing so, I am implicitly restricting myself to civil law to the exclusion of canon law; but in fact I wish to narrow the field even further, and consider only civil legal literature in the strict sense, that is, legislation and legal scholarship. Furthermore, I realize that the Western tradition, based on the Justinian legislation, only begins in the eleventh century – coinciding with a revival in Byzantium. Nevertheless, I think the comparison is relevant, if only because it is a useful starting point for reflections on the role of law in Byzantine society.
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