Evolution of Law: From Roman Foundations to Medieval Spain
Paths in Roman Law
Rome was the watershed for the majority of Private and Public Law. In private law, there is unanimous agreement, and public law also requires recognition of its great merit. Through Greece, Egypt, and the peoples of the Near East, the written word emerged (History of power). During the early Roman Republic, tribes were governed by a paterfamilias (the oldest male ancestor of the tribe, holding the power of life and death, and also directing the family’s religious cult in a room called home), where the aras altar was located. The early settlement arose near the River Tiber. As most patres were old, the meeting place was named senatus. The laws were originally known as senatus consulta. Roman society was divided. Patricians were the sons of the patres, holding the right of ownership. Commoners were the workers, who initially could only have offspring. At a certain point, the plebeians rebelled and stopped work, demanding that the laws be written and not just oral. As a result, in 450 BCE, the first written law, called the Law of the XII Tables, was put into force. The text of this law disappeared with the barbarian invasions. This law was the starting point of the Roman legal heyday. The great contribution of Roman law was to describe it as an object of theoretical knowledge. Legal standards until then were casuistic, such as cutting off a hand. The most remarkable legal book was not created in Rome but in Constantinople (now Istanbul): the Corpus Juris Civilis. Its second volume is called the Digest or Pandects, containing the most notable Roman legal contributions. Civilization owes its philosophical revelation to Greece, but Rome is undoubtedly the birthplace of legal science.
Rationalism: Arabs and Jews
Great Arab and Jewish thinkers were commentators on Greek philosophical works. Among them were Avicenna, Averroes, and Maimonides.
Avicenna
Avicenna, born in Turkestan, is known as the prince of physicians. He was also a politician and philosopher. His philosophical studies took off after he read Aristotle’s Metaphysics forty times, fully understanding it only after examining a treatise in a Damascus bookstore. His rationalism led him to say: “Everything that exists can be known by reason, so if God exists, He may be known by human reason.”
Averroes
Averroes, born in Cordoba, was the greatest philosopher of Islam. He always lived in Islamic Spain. Averroes was nicknamed “The Commentator” for his insightful commentaries on Aristotle’s works. He was a judge in Seville. His vision became the most influential philosophical current at the University of Paris during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. His influence extended to the work of Thomas Aquinas.
Muhammad lived six centuries after Jesus Christ and was strongly influenced by Jewish and Christian culture. He is believed to be the last prophet, succeeding Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, and Jesus Christ. Before Muhammad, the Arabs were polytheists and organized in tribes. Islam emerged in the seventh century CE. Muhammad preached the replacement of polytheism with monotheism, the end of tribal society, and the establishment of a unified community. Like Christ, he was persecuted, and his teachings were not written by him but by one of his disciples, Zaid. Just as Christ’s teachings were revealed in the Gospels, Muhammad’s were revealed in the Qur’an, meaning “recitation.” Soon after Muhammad’s death, his successors, who called themselves Caliphs, took over. Also born in Córdoba was the most notable Jewish thinker of the Middle Ages, Maimonides. A physician and philosopher, he was educated by the most important Arab thinkers and was a contemporary of Averroes. At that time, Jews preferred to live with the Arabs because they felt persecuted by Christians. He was greatly influenced by Aristotle, although he did not accept his theory of the eternity of the world. His best-known work is called “The Guide for the Perplexed.” The work of Thomas Aquinas is based on the work of these three great thinkers.
Spain
Christianity was introduced after the Edict of Milan. Sefarad (Tolerance) was the name used for Spain. Jews came to be known as Sephardic Jews and created a language called Ladino. The Visigoths initially professed Arianism. They established their order in the Iberian Peninsula and set their capital in Toledo, where they compiled several laws in Latin, such as the Roman Law of the Visigoths, or Breviary of Alaric. They converted to Christianity in 589 under King Reccared, initiating the persecution of Jews. In 711, Tariq, leading 20,000 Arabs, defeated 90,000 Visigoths in southern Spain (Andalusia). The Arabs banned religious discrimination. They believed that Muhammad was the last prophet in a line that began with Abraham and included Christ. Christians and Jews held important positions in their government, including political roles, although religious persecution still occurred. In 1492, the year of the discovery of America, the Catholic Monarchs defeated the Arabs in Granada, imposing a single state with one religion on a single people. Jews and Arabs were forced to convert to Christianity.