Law of Citations

LAW OF CITATIONS. - Name by which part of a constitution issued at Ravenna in 426 by Valentinian III is designated, a constitution that, as a whole, set out to regulate all the sources of law.

For the part that concerns us here, it established that the opinions expressed by five jurists could be cited in trials with legislative force: Papinian, Paul, Ulpian, Modestinus and Gaius, all of whom, with the exception of the last, had been furnished with the ius respondendi (that is, the faculty of issuing responsa in the name of the emperor). The constitution further prescribed that the opinions of the jurists cited by the aforesaid five could also be cited, provided that the citation was confirmed by collation with the original text, a thing very difficult in that era.

The judge had to adhere to the opinion of the five jurists when it was unanimous; in the absence of unanimity he had to follow the opinion of the majority; in the case of a numerical tie in favor of opposing theses, he had to conform to the one that was shared by Papinian. When none of these three cases occurred, the judge was free to follow the opinion that he considered best.

The constitution demonstrates the degree of decadence of the juridical culture of the time, given that the resolution of the controversy came to depend on an automatic criterion, constituted by the opinions of the five jurists, forming a kind of college, which earned the l. de responsis prudentum the name of "tribunal of the dead."

The l. de responsis prudentum was inserted into the Codex Theodosianus (I, 4, 3) and into the first Codex compiled by order of Justinian (v. CORPUS IURIS CIVILIS).