La critique du texte du Digeste à l’université de Bologne au XIIe et au début du XIIIe siècle. Le cas des commentaires sur D. 34.5.13.3

Abstract

Seven commentaries on D. 34.5.13.3 are examined, for the most part from the text found by the author in six codices written at the turn of the 13th century. The fugitive notice of Rogerius (d. around 1162) provoked attempts to correct the paragraph of the Digest and gave rise to a whole series of commentaries in the form of glosses, but also more developed commentaries, that of Ioannes Bassianus taking the form of a treatise. The Roman jurist has dealt in the paragraph with two variants of one and the same stipulation. Except for Bassianus, the medieval commentators could not understand the meaning of a fine distinction between these variants, and they were seduced by Rogerius’s idea that the elimination of the negative particle, employed in each of these variants, would have given an alternative character to two similar formulas of stipulation, by giving more movement and vigour to the thought of the Roman author. Rogerius wrote his entry in the first person. Next to this notice lies its paraphrase, written in the third person, probably by Placentin (d. between 1180 and 1192), Rogerius’ successor at the legal school of Provence. An interesting discussion focused on this paraphrase. The crux of the dispute was whether the negative particle should be eliminated in the first or second stipulation formula. In the heat of the discussion, the faithful followers of Bassianus, Hugolinus and Nicholas the Furious, largely ignored their master’s opinion.

Keywords:

medieval glosses, Roman law, Bologna jurists, Rogerius’ authorship