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This collection of books was rediscovered in a library in Pisa in 1070. It had a big impact. Bologna University (established in 1088) was the first university in Europe and its major appeal was its faculty of law, which had four professors who specialised in studying interpreting this work. It attracted student all over Europe. The Corpus Juris Civilis became the plank of the development an emerging class of professional lawyers. It became the foundation of the law in the Italian city-states of the time.
The Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I (reigned 1155–1190) was the first dynastic ruler to hire professional lawyers to run his administration, which became based on the Justinian Code. The use of Roman law provided a new rationale for imperial rule as the emperors’ claim to divine right to rule had been challenged. It presented the law of the state as a reflection of natural moral law and the principle of rationality and provided a framework which ensured consistency in administration.
The Corpus Juris Civilis was also used to formulate the Napoleonic Code in 1804. This replaced the existing uncoordinated and contradictory web of separate old feudal and royal French laws. This code was different than the Justinian Code, which was a collection of edited or revised exracts of law. It was more systematic. Nevertheless, the latter provided material which was important in the creation of Europe’s first modern code of civil law. Following the French example, continental European countries later also compiled their codes of civil law and they,too, used the Corpus Juris Civilis as its foundation.
