Christianity,
with some fragments from earlier collections. It was made by order of
Alaric king of the Visigoths about the year 500, and it is frequently
confounded, with the Theodosian code by writers of the dark ages.[796]
The code of Justinian, reduced into system after the separation of the
two former countries from the Greek empire, never obtained any authority
in them; nor was it received in the part of Italy subject to the
Lombards. But that this body of laws was absolutely unknown in the West
during any period seems to have been too hastily supposed. Some of the
more eminent ecclesiastics, as Hincmar and Ivon of Chartres,
occasionally refer to it, and bear witness to the regard which the Roman
church had uniformly paid to its decisions.[797]

The revival of the study of jurisprudence, as derived from the laws of
Justinian, has generally been ascribed to the discovery made of a copy
of the Pandects at Amalfi, in 1135, when that city was taken by the
Pisans. This fact, though not improbable, seems not to rest upon
sufficient evidence.[798] But its truth is the less material, as it
appears to be unequivocally proved that the study of Justinian's system
had recommenced before that era. Early in the twelfth century a
professor named Irnerius[799] opened a school of civil law at Bologna,
where he commented, if not on the Pandects, yet on the other books, the
Institutes and Code, which were sufficient to teach the principles and
inspire the love of that comprehensive jurisprudence. The study of law,
having thus revived, made a surprising progress; within fifty years
Lombardy was full of lawyers, on whom Frederic Barbarossa and Alexander
III., so hostile in every other respect, conspired to shower honours and
privileges. The schools of Bologna were pre-eminent throughout this
century for legal learning. There seem also to have been seminaries at
Modena and Mantua; nor was any considerable city without distinguished
civilians. In the next age they became still more numerous, and their
professors more conspicuous, and universities arose at Naples, Padua,
and other places, where the Roman law was the object of peculiar
regard.[800]

There is apparently great justice in the opinion of Tiraboschi, that by
acquiring internal freedom and the right of determining controversies by
magistrates of their own election, the Italian cities were led to
require a more extensive and accurate code of written laws than they had
hitherto