THE CHANGING SOCIOLOGY OF ROMAN LAW SCHOLARSHIP

As a prelude, some quantitative observations may be in order. Throughout this volume, no systematic attempt has been made to allocate space in balanced proportion to the numbers of authors working in a specific century. In the 17th century, for example, more authors voiced an opinion on our matter than the ones here reported. And yet, the accelerated proliferation of Roman law research throughout the 20th and 21st centuries is clearly visible (Fig. 10). The increase in numbers is so massive that it eclipses the effect which the displacement of the Corpus Iuris as a part of the ‘black letter law’ might have had. As the study of the Digest became detached from the hustle and bustle of contemporary legal practice and Roman law became a matter of pure historical research, the formerly steady demand for ‘practical’ solutions, extracted from the text of the Digest, should have waned. One might have expected the loss of this demand to manifest itself in a slowdown of scholarly production. No such effect can be detected in the data here collected.

What are the drivers of this surprising growth? Roman law activities have typically been pursued in prospering societies, which depend for their operation on a functioning legal framework of high calibre, and in turn provide resources for the maintenance of university studies. Two thirds of all contributions here recorded, which are indicative of an advanced Roman law discourse, originated from what economic historians have called la banane bleue, a geographical corridor credited with a consistent above-average activity of trade and industries, allowing accumulation of capital and intensification of cultural activities (Fig. 9). If the banana bleue thesis holds true, it might be argued that the increase in our research simply betrays the growing prosperity of the contemporary societal environment over the last 150 years.

Today, there are more scholars at work in the field of Roman law than ever before. Both the number of universities and their respective research forces have been steadily increasing. Roman law scholarship is no exception. Essential working tools for Roman law research, physically held only in some advanced libraries and Roman law institutes, are now to a large degree available online and can be accessed from every desk, anywhere in the world.