In fact, Savigny himself examines and recognises the full importance of the various sources of _pre_-Justinian law diffused in the Middle Ages. The code of Theodosius (438) which then possessed great authority, and the edict drawn up by order of Theodoric the Ostrogoth (500), were direct compilations of the old Roman Jurisprudence. If in these compilations we turn our attention to the constitution of the family, more particularly as regards succession, we find it exactly as it was before the law was interwoven with the Imperial edicts.[373] The Breviary of Alaric ("Lex Romana Visigothorum") and the so-called _Papian_ code ("Lex Romana Burgundioram"), both posterior to the year 500, are likewise compilations of _pre_-Justinian law, and are found to be diffused in several provinces of the Empire. The often-mentioned "Lex Romana Utiniensis, seu Curiensis," which seems to be ninth century _rimpasto_ of Alaric's Breviary for the use of Italians in lands previously under Longobard rule, also shows the same characteristics. It is true that, according to the hypothesis of Savigny, the Breviary of Alaric must have been in use among the Franks and brought by them to Italy after the expulsion of the Longobards. In this case we should find the old law to have been in force among us only before and after the period of the Longobards; while during their oppressive rule we should discover no certain trace of it. But it is very difficult to suppose that the ancient law, based as it was upon custom, should have died out precisely when custom might have preserved it, or that Roman law should at that time have assumed the literary Justinian form and afterwards have returned to a form more primitive. Had the legislation of Justinian in its genuine form been once accepted, it must have continued to gain ground with the advance of civilisation and under the less severe rule of the Franks, whose mode of life approached much nearer to that of the Latins. The fact is, that throughout the Middle Ages we meet with pre-Justinian legal forms, more or less modified, even among the laws of the Longobards.[374] As to the remark that the earliest Italian commentators, the _glossators_, directed their studies to the Pandects and the whole of the _Corpus iuris_--this only shows that on the revival of the communes and of letters they turned, as was natural, to the most authoritative and literary source of jurisprudence. From that time, in fact, no other is looked for.[375] [Illustration: THE TOMB OF THEODORIC, RAVENNA. [_To face page 384._]