ECLOGA ISAURICA (Ἐκλογὴ τῶν νόμων). — A compilation, prepared chiefly from material drawn from the four parts of the Corpus iuris citatis (v.), at the order of the emperor Leo III Isaurian and his son Constantine V Copronymus, and promulgated in 739–740.
It is divided into 18 titles or books and deals almost exclusively with matters of civil law; it was intended essentially for judicial practice. In the E. profound modifications were introduced, especially in the area of family and matrimonial law, in relation to the discipline established by Justinian; for example, by adopting a decision of the Third Council of Constantinople (Trullan), marriage with another man’s betrothed is considered adultery; moreover, marriage between Catholics and heretics is prohibited (a decision of the Council of Laodicea). Although subsequently repudiated—for being the work of the iconoclast emperors—the E. was widely used in practice and served as the basis for other compilations, such as the Ecloga privata, the Ecloga privata meta, and the Ecloga ad Prochiren moteta, the latter two being especially important for the history of Italian law, because they were composed in the 12th century in southern Italy during Norman rule.
The editio princeps of the E. is that of Zachariae von Lingenthal in the Collectio librarum iuris Graeco-romani ineditorum (Leipzig 1852, pp. 9–52); the most recent reprint, with a French translation, is that of C. A. Spulber.