A Sourcebook on Byzantine Law - Medieval Law and Its Practice by Daphne Penna & Roos Meijering Hardcover

About the Book

This book provides for the first time in English a wide range of Byzantine legal sources and explains Byzantine law through these sources, thereby offering a scholarly introduction to the background and content of Byzantine law.

Book Synopsis

This is the first book in English providing a wide range of Byzantine legal sources. In six chapters, this book explains and illustrates Byzantine law through a selection of fundamental Byzantine legal sources, beginning with the sources before the time of Justinian, and extending up to AD 1453.
For all sources English translations are provided next to the original Greek (and Latin) text. In some cases, tables or other features are included that help further elucidate the source and illustrate its nature. The volume offers a clear yet detailed primer to Byzantine law, its sources, and its significance.

Review Quotes

'...the sourcebook on Byzantine law by Penna and Meijering fills a huge gap as an accessible introduction to Byzantine legal literature, supplemented by concise and accurate translations of source texts into English. The authors are to be congratulated on a major achievement: with this sourcebook, aspiring instructors might be tempted to add their own institutions to the select list of universities where Byzantine law is taught.'
Zachary Chitwood (Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz) in The Byzantine Review 05.2023.022 (doi: 10.17879/byzrev-2023-5117)

"Daphne Penna and Roos Meijering have done the field a great service with this book and have filled a significant gap in the literature. [...] This field has a well-earned reputation for obscurity and inaccessibility, but Penna and Meijering have done much to help overturn that reputation. Their clear presentation and explanation of the sources open the subject to a much wider audience; the book deserves to become a standard text in the teaching of Byzantine law."
James Morton (Chinese University of Hong Kong) in Speculum, Vol. 100, No. 2 (2025), pp. 578-579

"...Les commentaires des auteurs du livre sur les sources présentées et traduites sont concis et précis. [...] Le langage clair du livre et les traductions pertinentes des sources réussissent à les rendre compréhensibles et, par conséquent, d'ouvrir une fenêtre sur le droit byzantin même à un public de non-initiés. [...] Le livre sera donc un complément nécessaire pour l'enseignement du droit byzantin à toute faculté et professeur d'histoire du droit, qui voudrait inclure dans son enseignement des cours sur cette partie intégrale de l'histoire européenne du droit, parmi les plus importantes, riches en culture juridique et pourtant moins connues et familières aux juristes occidentaux. Il servira aussi comme guide d'introduction à la recherche, rassemblant toutes les informations pratiques pour s'initier et aborder l'étude des sources juridiques byzantines, rendues accessibles et familières d'une manière globale et compréhensive..."
Athina Dimopoulou (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens) in Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte: Romanistische Abteilung, 141/1 (2024), pp. 628-633

About the Author

Daphne Penna, Ph.D. (2012), University of Groningen, is Assistant Professor of Legal History at that university. Her interests are Roman and Byzantine law, and particularly their influence on the European legal tradition; she has published extensively on this area.
Roos Meijering, Ph.D. (1987), University of Groningen, was Assistant Professor of Legal History at that same university until her retirement in 2017. Meijering's publications include articles on Byzantine law, commentaries and critical editions of Byzantine legal sources.