Civil Law

This section has a whole lot more to do with law than it does politics in the proper sense. The laws of a nation define the ultimate law giver for that nation. So laws are far more important in the epistemological sense than politics. When the Christianization of the Roman empire had taken place, it became necessary to redefine the law code according to the Christian law giver. Secular Rome's law had become a disorganized amass of unrelated disjointed laws. Emperor Justinian understood that it was not a matter of just replacing one set of laws for another. He immediately made it a priority to codify and compile the existing law code, and did something no other Roman emperor had done. He publicized and made that law accessible to everyone. His reign then consisted of  ruling by re-interpreting that law in his Civis Juris according to Biblical principles.

Thus begun the long process of medeival scholars in writing commentaries of the Civis Juris. This is an important turning point for law in the western world. Women were given more rights than they had ever had prior to Justinians reign. The Magna Carta was forthright a reinterpretation of the old Roman law code that had been intended only for the richly privelaged within the empire to direct those property rights to the common man.

Important documents:

• Politica by Johannes Althusius (Off site)
• Magna Carta
• Justinian I Civis Juris