THE INSTITUTES OF JUSTINIAN; WITH ENGLISH INTRODUCTION, TRANSLATION, AND NOTES, BY THOMAS COLLETT SANDARS, M.A., LATE FELLOW OF ORIEL COLLEGE, OXford. LONDON: JOHN W. PARKER AND SON, WEST STRAND. M.DCCC.LIII. 1953 PREFACE. NEARLY a century has elapsed since the publication of the last English edition of the Institutes of JUSTINIAN, and as, owing to the discovery of the manuscript of Gaius and the labours of foreign jurists, the knowledge of Roman law has advanced in recent years much beyond its extent at the period when that edition appeared, there seems reason to hope that a new edition may prove useful to those who wish to pursue the study of Roman law. The Institutes must always continue to be the best introduction to that study, and will naturally serve as the readiest channel of exhibiting the general features of Roman law to those who are unacquainted with the subject. I have not attempted to write for any but this class of readers, and am well aware that those, to whom the subject is familiar, will find many points treated in a way that must appear to them meagre and unsatisfactory. But minute criticism and lengthened dissertations would make the work perplexing and useless to beginners, and, therefore, unfit to fulfil the purpose for which the Institutes were originally intended. In preparing the notes to this edition of the Institutes, I have been under obligations to the French edition by Ortolan so great as to call for the amplest acknowledgment. I have |