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ER 2096
The Emperors Valentinian, Theodosius, and Arcadius issue the law on penalties which mentions clerics who help convicted criminals to escape. The law issued on 13 March 392 in Constantinople, included in the Theodosian Code published in 438.
IX.40.15
 
IDEM AAA. TATIANO P(RAEFECTO) P(RAETORI)O. Si quis convictus reus maximi criminis fuerit subiectusque sententiae, conpetens iudicium conpleatur nec exquisita commentis ars eiusmodi subornetur, ut direptus a clericis adseratur vel appellasse simuletur. Quod si quisquam post iudicium vendibili coniventia licentiae huic praestiterit adsensum, haut levia sustinebit. Nam proconsules, comites Orientis, praefecti Aug(ustales), vicarii etiam adfecti nota deformi tricenas auri libras conpendiis fiscalibus conferent, iudices autem ordinarii similiter deformati quinas denas cogentur exsolvere. Officia vero eorundem isdem, quibus iudices sui, dispendiis subiacebunt, si in suggestione cessaverint ac non praeceptum legis ingesserint atque iniecta manu, ne rei auferantur, obstiterint ac nisi id quod fuerit constitutum in effectum exsecutionemque perduxerint. DAT. III ID. MART. CONSTANTINOP(OLI) ARCAD(IO) A. II ET RVFINO CONSS.
 
(ed. Mommsen 1905: 504)
IX.40.15
 
The same Augustuses to Tatianus, Praetorian Prefect [i.e. = Valentinian, Theodosius, and Arcadius named in IX.40.14]
If any accused person has been convicted of a very great crime and sentenced, the competent judgment shall be fulfilled, and clever trickery shall not be provided with pretexts of the following sort, namely, the assertion that the defendant has been snatched away by clerics or the pretense that he has appealed. But if anyone after the decision should give assent to such license by venal connivance, he shall sustain penalties not at all light. For proconsuls, counts of the Orient, augustal prefects, and even vicars shall suffer the stigma of infamy and shall each pay to the fiscal account thirty pounds of gold; judges ordinary, moreover, shall be similarly stigmatized and compelled to pay fifteen pounds of gold each. The office staffs of the aforesaid persons shall be subjected to the same fine as their own judges if they have failed in their recommendations, if they have not mentioned the precept of the law, if they have not used physical force to prevent the accused person from being taken away, and if they have not
carried into effect and execution the sentence which had been pronounced.
Given on the third day before the ides of March at Constantinople in the year of the second consulship of Arcadius Augustus and the consulship of Rufinus. March 13, 392.
 
(trans. Pharr 1952: 257)

Place of event:

Region
  • East
City
  • Constantinople

About the source:

Title: Codex Theodosianus, Code of Theodosius, Theodosian Code
Origin: Constantinople (East)
Denomination: Catholic/Nicene/Chalcedonian
The Theodosian Code is a compilation of the Roman legislation from the times of the Emperor Constantine to the times of Theodosius II. The work was begun in 427 and finished in autumn 437 when it was accepted for publication. It was promulgated in February 438 and came into effect from the beginning of the year 439.
 
The compilation consist of sixteen books in which all imperial constitutions are gathered beginning with the year 312. Books 1-5 did not survive and are reconstructed from the manuscripts of the Lex Romana Visigothorum, i.e. the Breviary of Alaric, the legal corpus published in 506 by the Visigothic king, Alaric, containing excerpts from the Theodosian Code equipped with explanatory notes (interpretationes), post-Theodosian novels and several other juristic texts.
 
A new compilation was undertaken during the reign of the emperor Justinian. A committee of ten persons prepared and promulgated the Codex in 529. It was quickly outdated because of the legislative activities of the emperor and therefore its revised version had to be published in 534. The Codex together with the novels, the Pandecta, a digest of juristic writings, and the Institutes, an introductory handbook are known under the medieval name "Corpus Iuris Civilis".
Edition:
Theodor Mommsen and Paul Martin Meyer (eds.), Theodosiani libri XVI cum constitutionibus Sirmondianis et leges novellae ad Theodosianum pertinentes, 2 vols., Berlin 1905
Paul Krüger (ed.), Codex Iustinianus, Berlin 1877
Gustav Hänel (ed.), Lex Romana Visigothorum, Leipzig 1849
 
Translation:
The Theodosian Code and Novels and the Sirmondian Constitutions, a translation with commentary, glossary, and bibliography by C. Pharr, Princeton 1952
Bibliography:
(all those entries with extenstive, recent bibliography)
 
 

Categories:

Described by a title - Clericus
    Public law - Secular
      Relation with - Secular authority
        Pastoral activity - Ransoming and visiting prisoners and captives
          Pastoral activity - Granting asylum
            Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL: M. Szada, Presbyters in the Late Antique West, ER2096, http://presbytersproject.ihuw.pl/index.php?id=6&SourceID=2096
            Record by: Marta Szada
            last edited: 2020-09-24 18:26:52
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