PANDECTS. In Civil Law. The name of an abridgment or compilation of the civil law, made by Tribonian and others, by order 3f the emperor Justinian, and to which he gave the force of law, A. D. 533.
It is also known by the name of the Digest, be cause in his compilation the writings of the jurists were reduced to order and condensed quasi digestice.
The emperor, in 530, published an ordinance entitled De Conception Digestorum, which was addressed to Tribonian, and by which he was required to select some of the most distinguished lawyers to assist him in composing a collection of the best decisions of the ancient lawyers, and compile them in fifty books, without confusion or contradiction. The in structions of the emperor were to select what was useful, to omit what was antiquated or superfluous, to avoid contradictions, and by the necessary changes, to produce a complete body of law. This work was a companion to the Code of Justinian, and was to be governed in its arrangement of topics by the method of the Code. Justinian allowed the commissioners, who were sixteen in number, ten years to compile it ; ' but the work was completed in three years, and promulgated in 533. A list of the writers from whose works the collection was made, and an account of the method pursued by the commissioners, will be found in Smith's Diet. of Gr. & Rom. Antiq. About a third of the collection is taken from Ulpian ; Julius Paulus, a contempo rary of Ulpian, stands next: these two contributed one-half of the Digest. Papinian comes next. The Digest, although compiled in Constantinople, was originally written in Latin, and afterwards trans lated into Greek.
The Digest is divided in two different ways: the first Into fifty books, each hook in several titles, and each title into several extracts or leges, and at the head of each series of extracts Is the name of the lawyer from whose work they were taken. The fifty books are allotted in seven parts.
The division into digestum vetus (book first to and including title second of book twenty-fourth), digestum infortiatum (title third of book twenty fourth, to and including book thirty-eighth), and digestum novum (from book thirty-ninth to the end), has reference to the order in which these three parts appeared. As to the methods of citing them, see CITATION OF AUTHORITIES.
The style of the work is very grave and pure, and contrasts in this respect with that of the Code, which is very far from classical. On the other hand, the learning of the Digest stands rather in the discussing of subtle questions of law, and enu merations of the variety of opinions of ancient lawyers thereupon, than in practical matters of daily use, of which the Code so simply and directly treats. See Ridley, View, pt. I. ch. 1, 2.
While the Pandecte form much the largest frac tion of the Corpus Juris, their relative value and importance are far more than proportional to their extent. They are, In fact, the soul of the Corpus Juris. Hadley, Rom. L. 11.
It covered the domain of private law and the dealings of men with each other. "Its design was noble, but its execution was exceedingly Imperfect." James C. Carter, The Law, etc., 288.
See CIVIL LAW.