The Two First Centuries of Florentine History: The Republic and Parties at the Time of Dante. Fourth Impression. — Dante Alighieri — John Shaqi
The Two First Centuries of Florentine History: The Republic and Parties at the Time of Dante. Fourth Impression.
Dante Alighieri · en
Everything therefore points to the conclusion that Roman law survived
among us to the downfall of the Western Empire, preserving by usage
many of the forms that had belonged to it before the compilation of
the _Corpus iuris_. While in this state it came into contact with the
Germanic code, and thereupon began the series of mutual alterations,
from which the Italian family emerged, reconstituted in a totally new
way, and together with it the Commune. It was a slow transformation,
during which Latin ideas and traditions steadily gained ground, and
gradually fused or destroyed the barbarian laws and institutions.
When communal liberties were finally proclaimed, a new culture was
inaugurated, and with it a new epoch in the history of Roman law. The
university of Bologna became the centre for the diffusion and study
of the Pandects, and the _Corpus iuris_ became speedily regarded as
the primary and perennial source of common law in our country. The
tradition, according to which the Pandects of Amalfi, carried off by
the Pisans, were by them discovered and made known for the first time
to the Western world, dates this event about the year 1135, that is
to say in the same age that witnessed the rise of the communes, and
in which, as related by another tradition, Guarnerius founded the
Bolognese school at the request of Countess Matilda.[376] Thus our
conclusions are supported alike by history, legend, and logic.
VI.
In Italy, therefore, at the beginning of the Middle Ages, the family
accorded a preference to the agnates, and, in consequence of the
continuous weakening of the State, was obliged to seek in itself for
increased strength. The inroads of the barbarians brought with them
a different constitution of the family, but this could effect no
great change in our own family system until the Longobards had firmly
established their dominion over us. There then began a great change in
the social condition of Italy, which was forcibly compelled to assume a
form more or less barbaric. Hence it concerns us to study the Longobard
family system, that we may see how far and in what way it could thus
alter ours.
[Illustration: ANCIENT SHRINE, RAVENNA.
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