Edict

EDICT. - Etymologically (from the Latin edicere) it means that which is made known to the public by means of oral communication.

I. IN ROMAN LAW

In Roman law the name of e. (edicta or leges edictales) was given to the ordinances of the magistrates by which certain measures were promulgated or the rules relating to the exercise of a particular magistracy were communicated to the people.

The right to issue e. (ius edicendi) belonged properly to the magistrates invested with imperium, that is, to the consul, the praetor and, in the provinces, the governor; it was extended also to the censors, the curule aediles, the tribunes and the pontifex maximus; later it belonged in particular to the emperor.

Originally publication took place by oral communication (edictio) made by the magistrate in a public assembly of the people (contio); to this it soon became customary to add, from a remote period, the public posting of the relevant text written in black letters on specially prepared white tablets (proponere in albo).

Among all the e. of the various magistrates, that of the urban praetor, to which the name edictum is given by antonomasia, has remained famous and very important, for the history of Roman law, as the basis and principal source of the so-called ius honorarium = praetorium. It was issued by the individual magistrate at the beginning of his office and was called edictum perpetuum inasmuch as it remained in force for the whole duration of the magistracy. It consisted of a body of principles relating to procedural law (but which
EDICOLA - E. on the flank of S. Maria in Trastevere (12th century). Rome.

in reality they amounted in practice to rules of substantive law, which the praetor would follow in granting the actions and procedural exceptions. While in the general or perpetual edict provision was made for the ordinary cases expressly listed in it, by means of the edicta repentina provision was made for cases of emergency (prout rex incifit) not contemplated therein. The central core of the perpetual edict, which, now tested by experience, was customarily handed down intact from praetor to praetor, was called edictum tralaticum or vetus.

The emperor Hadrian, around 130 A.D., availing himself of the work of the jurist Salvius Julianus, definitively codified the edict, which from then on was called perpetual in the strict sense of the word (edictum perpetuum).

Zaccaria da San Mauro

II. IMPERIAL EDICT

The emperor could issue edicts by virtue of the "imperium proconsulare" that was conferred upon him, and since his was an "imperium maius", his edicts had force not only for the provinces of which he was proconsul (the so-called imperial provinces, that is, the "non pacatae"), but also for the provinces left to the Senate's governance, and for Italy. The proof that this was so from the very beginnings of the imperial age is given by the famous inscription of Cyrene, containing five edicts of Augustus relating to local matters, that is, valid also for the senatorial province of Cyrenaica. In time, naturally, as the character of absolute monarchy of the Empire became ever more firmly established, the sources of law were no longer "leges, plebis scita, senatus consulta", but the "constitutiones principis". The legislative force of every deliberation of the emperor was also theoretically undisputed in the age of the Severans, but in practice even earlier the norms and instructions of the prince were considered as having legal force and effect equivalent, if not identical, to that of the laws (cf. Ulpian in Dig., 1, 4: "...Quodcumque imperator per epistulam et subscriptionem statuit vel cognoscens decrevit, vel de plano interlocutus est, vel edicto praecepit legem esse constat").

The forms in which these deliberations were issued bore the names "edicta, decreta, rescripta, epistolae, mandata, allocutiones", among which the "edicta" held first place. The formula was as for the edicts of republican magistrates: "Imperator ille... dicit"; publication took place by posting "in albo", and copies were sent to the magistrates and officials who were to take cognizance of them and see to their implementation.

Given the extension in space and time of the prince's powers, imperial edicts, unlike those of republican magistrates, had continuous force, without any need for an act of confirmation by the successor, and they served not only to carry out contingent and provisional administrative measures, but also to introduce general and lasting principles. As examples one may take the edicts of Augustus to the Cyrenaeans or, if one wants a more genuine form (since of the edicts to the Cyrenaeans only the Greek version survives), the edict of Claudius "de civitate Anaunorum" (cf. Fontes iuris Romani anteiustiniani, ed. S. Riccobono, I, Florence 1941, pp. 404 and 417).

It is understood, therefore, that the Empire's relations with Christianity were for the most part regulated by means of edicts. It is not certain that the Greek inscription entitled Αλέξανδρος Καλόκρος, probably found at Nazareth, has any connection with the Resurrection of Jesus. That edict of an unnamed emperor threatened penalties against violators of tombs, and some scholar proposed that the imperial intervention had been provoked by the outcry raised over the tomb of Christ found empty (abundant literature; recent summarizing work by M. Guarducci, in Rendic. della Pont. Accademia romana d'archeologia, 18 [1941-42], pp. 85-98). Likewise doubtful is whether a Letter of Claudius to the Alexandrians refers to the first Christian preaching and the disturbances that followed from it, in which the emperor admonishes the Jews of that city not to call in other Jews from Syria or Egypt so as to stir up a common pestilence in the world (recent publication with earlier bibliography: H. Janne, Lettre de Claude aux Alexandrins, in Mélanges Cumeau, I, Brussels 1936, pp. 271-95).

The great jurist Ulpian had collected the acts of government relating to Christianity, evidently realizing, also from the standpoint of scientific interest, the importance of the questions of a new aspect that Christian preaching and imperial reaction had brought forth. The notice is given by Lactantius (Divin. Institutionum, V, 11), but the collection which, had it been preserved, would have spared so many discussions on the juridical basis of the persecutions, is lost. Something at any rate of these acts of government relating to Christian questions has survived, mostly however not in the precise form of edicts. First in order of time and in importance is the Letter of Pliny to Trajan, and the reply of that emperor, which shows how a clear and straightforward solution had not yet been found (v. TRAIANO). Then there is the Rescript of Hadrian to Minucius Fundanus, proconsul of Asia, along the lines marked out by Trajan. All the constitutions that ordered the persecutions are lost; preserved instead is an epistle of the emperor Gallienus to certain bishops of Asia ordering the restitution of property confiscated in the persecution of Valerian, and the notice of a Decretum of Aurelian in a dispute between Paul of Samosata and Domnus over possession of the episcopal house of Antioch, and various other documentation (though not the texts of the edicts).

The edict of toleration of Galerius of 311 remains intact, preserved in the Greek text by Eusebius (Hist. eccl., VIII, 17), and in the Latin text by Lactantius (De mort. persecut., 34) with insignificant variations, nor are there valid reasons to doubt its authenticity. From this edict depend letters and acts of Maximinus Daia, who accepts, though reluctantly, the provisions of toleration. Of the so-called famous edict of Milan (v. EDITTO DI MILANO) there is no text, but there is the epistle that Licinius and Constantine sent to the magistrates to make known the provisions of the edict.

Once the Empire had become Christian, edicts and other acts of government were directed at consolidating the conquests of Christianity, at limiting and finally at altogether forbidding the profession of pagan cults, at regulating disciplinary questions, at intervening in the polemics between the Church and heretical sects. A fair number of these constitutions is found collected in the Codex Theodosianus and in the Justinianic collections. For example, with the constitution preserved in Cod. Theod., XVI, 11, 3, 5, Constantine exempts from the very heavy burden of the "munera", that is, from the obligation to perform unpaid and costly public functions, those belonging to the Christian clergy, and defines and recognizes which persons the privilege extends to. Various acts of Constantine were called for by the disputes of the Donatists and by the Arian question, and certainly by an imperial act was convoked the ecumenical Council of Nicaea, which was to define what the genuine faith of Christians ought to be. Noteworthy too are the constitutions of Constantius II of the years 340 and 346 by which public manifestations of pagan worship are forbidden (Cod. Theod., XVI, 1, 2 and 4) and those of Gratian, who renews the prohibitions of public worship, orders the closing of the temples, confiscates their property, and forbids bequests in their favor. Lively was the legislative activity of Julian the Apostate, who as regards religious policy acted in a sense wholly contrary to Christianity, but of it almost nothing has remained in the collections ordered by Theodosius II and by Justinian.

Roberto Paribeni

III. IN CANON LAW

In canon law, judicial citations made by public posting and by insertion in the official commentary of the Holy See (citationes edictales or per edictum: cf. cann. 1720, 1721 § 3) had and still retain the appellation of edicts, and sometimes also, in practice, extrajudicial citations, made jointly to several interested parties, for the handling of a matter or for the resolution of a dispute in an administrative forum.

In ancient times this name was given to certain legislative acts of the supreme pontiffs relating to the government of their temporal domain and, in general, to public proclamations made to the people by the popes and bishops concerning events, indults and deliberations affecting the community. Zeccaria da San Mauro