By the term Praetorian Edict the Ro mans meant the Edicts of the Praetor Ur banns, who was the chief personage em ployed in the higher administration of justice under the Republic. The Edicts which related to Peregrini (aliens) were so named after the Praetor Peregrinus ; and other edicts were called Censoria, Consularia, Aedilicia, and so on. Some times an Edict of importance took its name from the Praetor who promul gated it, as Carbonianum Edictum. Sometimes the Honorariae actions, those which the Praetor by his Edict per mitted, were named in like manner from the Praetor who introduced them. Sometimes an Edict had its name from the matter to which it referred. The Romans generally cited the Edicta by parts, titles, chapters, or clauses of the Edictum Perpetuum by naming the initial words, as Unde Legitimi, and so on ; sometimes they are cited by a reference to their contents. Examples of these modes of citing the Edictum occur in the titles of the forty-third book of the ' Digest.' (See the title Quorum Bono rum?) In our own law we refer to certain forms of proceedings and to certain ac tions in a like way, as when we say Quo Warranto, Quare Impedit, and speak of Qui tam actions.
The Jus Praetorium is defined by Pa piniau (Dig. i., tit. i. 7) as the law which the Praetors introduced for the purpose of aiding, supplying, or correcting the law (jus civile), with a view to the public interest. The edict is called by Marcia
uus " the living voice of the jus civile," that is, of the Roman law. (Dig. i., tit. i. 8.) The Praetorian Law, as thus formed, (Jus Praetorium) was a body of law which was distinguished by this name from the Jus Civile, or the strict law ; the op position resembled that of the English terms Equity and Law. In its complete and large sense Jus Civile Romanorum, or the Law of the Romans, of course com prehended the Jus Praetorium; but in its narrower sense Jus Civile was contrasted, as already explained, with the Jus Prae torium.
The origin of the Roman edictal Law is plainly to be traced to the imperfec tions of the old Jus Civile, and to the ne cessity of gradually modifying law and procedure according to the changing cir cumstances of the times. It was an easier method of doing this than by direct legislation. Numerous modern treatises contain a view of the origin and nature of the Roman Jus Praetonum, though on some points there is not complete uni formity of opinion.
(Bocking, Instit utionen,vol. i. ; Pnchta, Cursus der Insiitutionen, vol. i. p. 293; Savigny, Geschichte des ROm. Rechts, vol. i. ; Heffter, Die Oeconon'ie des Edictes, Rhein. Mus. fur Juris. i. p. 51 ; E. Schrader, Die Pratorischen Edicte der Romer, 1815.)