Syro-Roman law book
The Syro-Roman law book (or Syro-Roman code) is a compilation of secular legal texts from the
The earliest Syriac manuscript (
The content of the work is unsystematic and even includes laws that were obsolete already in the 5th century.
Although it deals with penal and public law as well, the primary focus of the Syro-Roman law book is private law, especially family law (inheritance, marriage, dowries, paternal authority and slaveholding).[2] The Syro-Roman law book, influential in the Middle Eastern legal tradition especially in Lebanon, prescribed the death penalty for homosexuality.[4] Given this focus, it has been suggested that the compilation was designed for use in episcopal courts (episcopalis audientia), where such things would have formed the bulk of actual cases.[1] Both the episcopal theory and the law school theory, however, are at best guesses; the original purpose of the work is unknown.[3]
The Syro-Roman law book in its Syriac version had been introduced to
See also
- Sententiae Syriacae, another Roman law book composed in Greek and surviving only in Syriac translation
- Byzantine law, a parallel development from Roman law, beginning with the Corpus Juris Civilis (529)
- Early social changes under Islam (610–61)
Critical editions
- Selb, W. and Kaufhold, H. (2002) Das syrisch-römische Rechtsbuch, eingeleitet, herausgegeben, deutsch übersetzt und kommentiert. 3 vols. Vienna.
- Võõbus, A. (1982–83) The Syro-Roman Lawbook: The Syriac Text of the Recently Discovered Manuscripts Accompanied by a Facsimile Edition and Furnished with an Introduction and Translation. 2 vols. Stockholm.
References
- ^ ISBN 0-19-504652-8.
- ^ a b c d e Gerhard Thür, "Syro‐Roman law book", in Roger S. Bagnall, Kai Brodersen, Craige B. Champion, Andrew Erskine and Sabine R. Huebner (eds.), The Encyclopedia of Ancient History (Wiley-Blackwell, 2013), pp. 6495–6496. Retrieved 1 September 2018.
- ^ a b c Gottfried Schiemann, "Syro-Roman law book", in Hubert Cancik and Helmuth Schneider (eds.), Brill's New Pauly, Vol. 14 (Brill, 2009). Retrieved 1 September 2018.
- ^ Strenski 2020, p. 394.
- ^ Patricia Crone, Roman, Provincial and Islamic Law: The Origins of the Islamic Patronate (Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 12 and 119.
- ^ Chibi Mallat, Introduction to Middle Eastern Law (Oxford University Press, 2007), pp. 22–32.
Sources
- Strenski, Ivan (2020). "On the Jesuit-Maronite Provenance of Lebanon's Criminalization of Homosexuality". Journal of Law and Religion. 35 (3): 380–406. .