yourselves persons of such
learning that you may conceive the flattering hope of yourselves
being able, when your course of legal study is completed, to
govern our empire in the different portions that may be entrusted
to your care.

Given at Constantinople on the eleventh day of the calends of
December, in the third consulate of the Emperor Justinian, ever
August (533)[28]

(4) The Novellae (Novels), or new statutes issued by Justinian between
the final edition of the Code and his death (534-565). These are really
a continuation of the Code, but they were never officially collected.

The Code and the Institutes were known and studied in Italy throughout
the Dark Ages, but the Digest, much the largest and most important part
of the Corpus Juris, was almost wholly neglected, if not unknown, until
the time of Irnerius of Bologna (_c._ 1070-1130). He and his co-laborers
collected and arranged the scattered parts of the entire Body of Civil
Law, and in particular introduced the Digest to western Europe. "Without
the Digest the study of Roman Law was in a worse position than the study
of Aristotle when he was known only from the Organon." In a most
important sense, therefore, the recovery of the Corpus Juris was a
contribution of the twelfth century to the group of available higher
studies. Hitherto Law had been taught usually as a mere branch of
Rhetoric, and as a part of a liberal education. The body of material now
made available was sufficient to occupy the student's entire time for
several years. It therefore attained standing as an independent subject,
and as a distinctly professional study.

The effect of this newly recovered body of learning upon the rise of
universities was very much like that of Abelard and his new method.
Students flocked in thousands to study law at Bologna, and toward the
close of the twelfth century the University was organized. Numerous
other universities arose directly from the same impulse, and "Law was
the leading Faculty in by far the greater number of mediaeval
universities" (Rashdall). Except for Canon Law, the Corpus Juris Civilis
remained the chief study of the Faculties of Law for more than five
centuries. Roman Law is still very generally taught in European
universities. Thus the impulse given by Irnerius and his co-laborers is
influential in university affairs of to-day.

The influence of Roman Law upon the social and political history of
Eur