CODEX HERMOGENIANUS. – This is a private collection of imperial constitutions compiled, as most scholars believe, between A.D. 314 and 323, since some constitutions issued by the emperors Constantine and Licinius still retain in it the mention of the latter emperor, a mention that was subsequently suppressed, as appears in the corresponding constitutions of the Codex Theodosianus. This occurred pursuant to a measure of A.D. 323, by which all the acts of the emperor Licinius were annulled.
The C. H. is the work of a jurist named Hermogenianus, who may or may not be the same person whose fragments are recorded in the Digest.
The work consists of a single book divided into several titles, under which the relevant constitutions were grouped. Most of the constitutions are dated from the East and were issued by the emperor Diocletian; hence it has been supposed that the collection was made in the eastern territory. This might also provide a basis for conjecture regarding the place of origin of the compiler of the code.
Like the Codice gregoriano, the C. H. does not introduce new law, but seeks to secure the law already received and by then established in common usage. Both codes also seem to have been intended to inform practitioners and to initiate students into the study of the laws.
The C. H. likewise is not known directly in its original form, but on the basis of fragments transmitted principally in the Fragmenta Vaticana (v.), the Colatio legum Mosaicarum et Romanarum (v.), the Consultatio veteris cuiusdam iurisconsulti (v.), and the Roman-barbarian laws of the Visigoths and Burgundians.
Krüger produced a new edition of these fragments in vol. III of the Collectio librorum iuris anteintiniane (Berlin 1900).
The C. H. must originally have included in its composition constitutions concerning religious matters as well. This leads one to regard as belonging to it the numerous series of constitutions of a religious nature subsequently included in the Codice teodosiano, for the corresponding period. Nevertheless, among the fragments preserved, in an indicative form, in the later collections into which they were incorporated, no provisions of an ecclesiastical character are encountered.
BIBLI: P. Krüger, Hist. des sources du droit romain, French translation by L. Brissaud, Paris 1894, p. 371 ff.; S. Perozzi, Istituzioni di dir. romano, Rome 1928, p. 72; P. De Francisci, Storia del diritto romano, III, Milan 1936, pp. 197–200 (with bibliography).