INTRODUCTION
There was a marked difference between the development of law and that of the other subjects so far treated by Isidore in the Etymologies. The latter were of Greek origin, and, with the exception of rhetoric, they appeared as strangers in the Roman environment and never formed an integral part of Roman culture. Instead, they suffered from continuous decay, and by the time of the disintegration of the Roman state they were reduced to such a condition that the “fall of Rome” meant nothing to them. On the other hand, law was an indigenous product of Roman society, upon which the Roman intellect had expended its greatest and most successful efforts, and although it inevitably shared in the general intellectual deterioration of the time, and showed a marked decline after the period of the great jurists, the beginning of its rapid decay is coincident in each section of western Europe with the close of Roman rule. Thus “the fall of Rome” played much the same part in the history of law as the transition from a Greek to a Roman environment had done for the bulk of the intellectual possession of the ancient civilization. After this event law was on terms of equality with the other branches of knowledge, and within two centuries, as judged by its presentation in the Etymologies, it was reduced to as low an estate as they.
Isidore’s De Legibus is divided into two distinct parts. The first is of a general nature, and embraces such topics as law-givers, jus civile, jus gentium, jus naturale, why laws are made, and what character a law ought to have. The second part is more specific; it treats of legal instruments, the law of property, crimes, and punishments. The whole forms a scholastic conglomerate of elements derived from every stage in the development of Roman law and exhibits a point of view that is philological and Christian as much as legal.
Because of its importance in the history of law, this book of the Etymologies has been subjected to more detailed study than any other, but in spite of this its sources have not been clearly determined. In addition to the Scriptures and Isidore’s authorities on word derivation, he is believed to have drawn on the Breviarium Alaricianum, the Theodosian code, the text-books of Gaius and Ulpian, and the Sentences of Paulus. Although the Justinian code was issued a century before the compilation of the Etymologies, it seems improbable that Isidore made any use of it, or had even heard of it.[292]
The purpose of the De Legibus was, no doubt, to serve as a text-book.[293] The amount of space given to it, which is about the average of that allotted to each of the liberal arts, and the fact that it treats of law in a general way, point to this conclusion. Its position in the Etymologies, following, with Medicine, immediately after the liberal arts, is also an indication of its educational character. The best proof of this, however, is found in the number of separate manuscripts in which the De Legibus is reproduced in a catechetical form.[294] At least eight of these are in existence, and the earliest of them is attributed to the ninth century.
EXTRACTS
Chapter 1. On law-givers.
1. Moses first of all set forth the divine laws in the sacred writings for the Hebrew people. King Phoroneus was the first to establish laws and courts for the Greeks.
2. Mercurius Trismegistus first gave laws to the Egyptians. Solon first legislated for the Athenians. Lycurgus first made rules of law for the Lacedaemonians and pretended Apollo’s authority for them.
3. Numa Pompilius, who succeeded Romulus in the kingdom, was the first to give laws to the Romans. Later, when the people could not endure their quarrelsome magistrates they appointed decemvirs to write the laws, and they translated the laws from the books of Solon into the Latin language, and set them up on twelve tables.