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ER 2087
The Emperors Honorius and Theodosius issue the law on the exposed children according to which one can take up an exposed child provided that it is confirmed by the bishop (and his clerics, as specified in the interpretation in the Breviary). The law issued on 19 March 412 in Constantinople, included in the Theodosian Code published in 438 and in the Breviary of Alaric published in 506 in Gaul, as well as repeated in the Justinian Code promulgated in 529 and then again 534.
V.9.2 = Brev. Alar. V.7.2 = Codex Iustinianus VIII.51.2
 
DE EXPOSITIS
     
IMPP. HONOR(IVS) ET THEOD(OSIVS) AA. MELITIO P(RAEFECTO) P(RAETORIO). Nullum dominis vel patronis repetendi aditum relinquimus si expositos quoddammodo ad mortem voluntas misericordiae amica collegerit, nec enim dicere suum poterit, quem pereuntem contempsit; si modo testis episcopalis subscriptio fuerit subsecuta, de qua nulla penitus ad securitatem possit esse cunctatio. DAT. XIIII KAL. APRIL. RAV(ENNA) HONORIO VIIII ET THEOD(OSIO) V AA. CONSS.
INTERPRETATIO. Qui expositum puerum vel puella sciente domino vel patrono misericordiae causa collegerit, in eius dominio permanebit: si tamen contestationi de collectione eius episcopus clericique subscripserint, quoniam postea suum dicere quisque non poterit, quem proiecisse probatur ad mortem.
 
(ed. Mommsen 1905: 226)
V.9.2 = Brev. Alar. V.7.2 = Codex Iustinianus VIII.51.2
 
EXPOSED CHILDREN
 
Emperors Honorius and Theodosius Augustuses to Melitius, Praetorian Prefect.
We leave to owners and patrons no avenue of recovery if good will, the friend of compassion, has taken up children exposed in a measure to death, for no one can call his own a child whom he scorned when it was perishing; provided only that the signature of a bishop as witness should immediately follow and, for the sake of security, there can be absolutely no delay in obtaining this signature.
Given on the fourteenth day before the kalends of April at Ravenna in the year of the ninth consulship of Honorius Augustus and
the fifth consulship of Theodosius Augustus. March 19, 412.
INTERPRETATION: If any person through compassion should take up a child, either a boy or a girl, exposed with the knowledge of its owner or patron, such child shall remain under the ownership of the person who took it up, provided, however, that the bishop and clerics subscribe to an attestation with regard to such taking up. If a person should be proved to have cast forth a child to death, he cannot later call such child his own.
 
(trans. C. Pharr 1952: 109-110)

Place of event:

Region
  • East
  • Gaul
City
  • Constantinople

About the source:

Title: Codex Theodosianus, Code of Theodosius, Theodosian Code, Breviary of Alaric, Lex Romana Visigothorum, Code of Justinian, Codex Iustinianus, Justinianic Code
Origin: Constantinople (East), Gaul
Denomination: Catholic/Nicene/Chalcedonian, Arian
The Theodosian Code is a compilation of the Roman legislation from the times of the Emperor Constantine to the times of Theodosius II. The work was begun in 427 and finished in autumn 437 when it was accepted for publication. It was promulgated in February 438 and came into effect from the beginning of the year 439.
 
The compilation consist of sixteen books in which all imperial constitutions are gathered beginning with the year 312. Books 1-5 did not survive and are reconstructed from the manuscripts of the Lex Romana Visigothorum, i.e. the Breviary of Alaric, the legal corpus published in 506 by the Visigothic king, Alaric, containing excerpts from the Theodosian Code equipped with explanatory notes (interpretationes), post-Theodosian novels and several other juristic texts.
 
A new compilation was undertaken during the reign of the emperor Justinian. A committee of ten persons prepared and promulgated the Codex in 529. It was quickly outdated because of the legislative activities of the emperor and therefore its revised version had to be published in 534. The Codex together with the novels, the Pandecta, a digest of juristic writings, and the Institutes, an introductory handbook are known under the medieval name "Corpus Iuris Civilis".
Edition:
Theodor Mommsen and Paul Martin Meyer (eds.), Theodosiani libri XVI cum constitutionibus Sirmondianis et leges novellae ad Theodosianum pertinentes, 2 vols., Berlin 1905
Paul Krüger (ed.), Codex Iustinianus, Berlin 1877
Gustav Hänel (ed.), Lex Romana Visigothorum, Leipzig 1849
 
Translation:
The Theodosian Code and Novels and the Sirmondian Constitutions, a translation with commentary, glossary, and bibliography by C. Pharr, Princeton 1952
Bibliography:
(all those entries with extenstive, recent bibliography)
 
 

Categories:

Described by a title - Clericus
    Private law - Secular
      Relation with - Children
        Legal practice
          Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL: M. Szada, Presbyters in the Late Antique West, ER2087, http://www.presbytersproject.ihuw.pl/index.php?id=6&SourceID=2087
          Record by: Marta Szada
          last edited: 2019-08-12 10:20:45
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