The great compilation of the Roman Law known as the _Corpus Juris Civilis_ (Body of Civil Law) constitutes a second important addition of the twelfth century to the field of university studies. It was probably more important as an influence upon the growth of universities than the works of Aristotle. The greater part of the Corpus Juris was compiled at Constantinople, 529-533 A.D., by certain eminent jurists under the Roman Emperor, Justinian. The purpose of the work was to reduce to order and harmony the mass of confused and contradictory statutes and legal opinions, and to furnish a standard body of laws of manageable size in place of the unwieldly mass of incorrect texts commonly in use, so that "the entire ancient law, in a state of confusion for some fourteen hundred years and now by us made clear, may be, so to speak, enclosed within a wall and have nothing left outside it." The jurists entrusted with this work were also required to prepare an introductory book for students, as described below. After the completion of the whole work Justinian issued (533-565) many new statutes (Novellae) which were never officially collected, but which came to be considered a part of the Corpus Juris. The main divisions of the Body of Civil Law are-- (1) The Code, in twelve books, which contains statutes of the Emperors from the third century A.D. Since [says Justinian] we find the whole course of our statutes ... to be in a state of such confusion that they reach to an infinite length and surpass the bounds of all human capacity, it was therefore our first desire to make a beginning with the most sacred Emperors of old times, to amend their statutes, and to put them in a clear order, so that they might be collected together in one book, and, being divested of all superfluous repetition and most inequitable disagreement, might afford to all mankind the ready resource of their unalloyed character.[25] (2) The Digest, or Pandects, in fifty books, containing extracts from the opinions of Roman lawyers on a great variety of legal questions. This work was also undertaken to bring order and harmony out of the prevailing confusion: