Reception and vulgarization of Roman law by barbaric legislation on the example of the Edict of Theodoric (VI century)

Abstract

The subject of the study was the reception (borrowing) of the norms of Roman law by the legislation of barbarian states that gained independence after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, as well as the accompanying vulgarization (simplification) of legal norms. The object of the study was the Edict of Theodoric - a collection of legal norms of the VI century, adopted on the territory of Italy on the initiative of the Ostrogothic ruler Theodoric the Great. This document was aimed at ensuring the peaceful coexistence of the Gothic and Roman populations of Italy, which is why it demonstrates the mechanism for including the norms of Roman law familiar to a significant part of the population into a single system of legislation of the barbarian Ostrogothic Kingdom. The main research methods were comparative legal and historical. The main conclusions of the study are the following: 1) the reception of Roman law by barbaric legislation, on the example of the Edict of Theodoric, took place in three directions - the expansion of the original norm, its narrowing and qualitative reinterpretation; 2) vulgarization was an integral part of the reception, but one should not perceive the process of simplifying the norms of Roman law as exclusively negative, vulgarization was one of the mechanisms that ensured the survival of Roman law and the subsequent revival in the legal systems of continental Europe. The novelty of the research is based on the use of comparative legal and historical methods: they allowed to identify the main sources of the Theodoric Edict, compare the provisions of the original norms with their interpretation in the text of the Edict, identify the reasons for verbatim borrowing or rethinking of specific norms.