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ER 2142
The Emperors Honorius and Theodosius II issue the law which orders clerics obliged to the service in municipal councils who failed to fulfil their duty to be restored to the curial status or to lose their property for their municipality. The law issued on 24 May 410, included in the Theodosian Code published in 438.
XII.1.172
 
IDEM AA. HERCVLIO P(RAEFECTO) P(RAETORI)O ILLYRICI. Sententiae conquiescant, quae in praeiudicium curiarum transactis temporibus sub examine magnificae sedis tuae contra rationem veritatis prolatae curiae debitos per gratiam absolverunt, universique, quos sors nascendi municipalibus muneribus obligavit, fortunam propriam subire cogantur. 1. Eos autem, qui sub patrocinio clericatus muneribus debitis patriam fraudaverunt, reddi sub ea condicione praecipimus, ut pro temporis consideratione et gradu, quem in ecclesiis obtinent, vel ipsi ad statum pristinum redeant et functionibus municipalibus obsecundent vel eorum patrimonia curiis consignentur: 2. His etiam, qui ultro se curiarum coetibus inseruerunt, in ea quam elegerunt fortuna residentibus, circa eorum filios legum auctoritate servata. DAT. VIIII KAL. IVN. CONSTANTINOPOLI VARANE V. C. CONS.
 
(ed. Mommsen 1905: 704)
XII.1.172
 
The same Augusti to Herculius, Praetorian Prefect of Illyricum.
Those decisions shall be annulled which were pronounced in times past during investigation in the office of Your Magnificence, to the prejudice of the municipal councils and contrary to reasonable truth, and which, through favoritism, absolved men who were obligated to the municipal councils. All men shall be forced to undergo their own fortune if they are obligated to the performance of compulsory municipal services by the lot of their birth. 1. Furthermore, if any man under the protection of a position as cleric has defrauded his municipality of the compulsory public services which were due. We command that he shall be restored under the condition that, in consideration of the period of time and his rank as a cleric which he holds in the Church, either he shall return to his original status and perform his compulsory municipal services, or his patrimony shall be assigned to the municipal council. 2. Also if any men have voluntarily inserted themselves into the group of a municipal council, they shall remain in that fortune which they chose, but the authority of the laws shall be observed with respect to their children.
Given on the ninth day before the kalends of June at Constantinople in the year of the consulship of the Most Noble Varanes. May 24, 410.
 
(trans. Pharr 1952: 367)

Discussion:

The emperors are named in XII.1.168.

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:

Social origin or status - Social elite
    Described by a title - Clericus
      Public functions and offices before ordination
        Public functions and offices after ordination - Civic office
          Public law - Secular
            Economic status and activity - Indication of wealth
              Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL: M. Szada, Presbyters in the Late Antique West, ER2142, http://presbytersproject.ihuw.pl/index.php?id=6&SourceID=2142
              Record by: Marta Szada
              last edited: 2019-08-12 10:22:21
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