Editing Breviary of Alaric (section)

==Significance==
It is termed a code (''codex''), in the certificate of [[Anianus (referendary)|Anianus]], the king's referendary, but unlike the code of [[Justinian I|Justinian]], from which the writings of jurists were excluded, it comprises both imperial constitutions (''leges'') and juridical treatises (''jura''). From the circumstance that the ''Breviarium'' has prefixed to it a royal rescript (''commonitorium'') directing that copies of it, certified under the hand of Anianus, should be received exclusively as law throughout the kingdom of the Visigoths, the compilation of the code has been attributed to Anianus by many writers, and it is frequently designated the ''Breviary of Anianus'' (''Breviarium Aniani'').<ref name=EB1911>{{EB1911|inline=1|wstitle=Breviary of Alaric|volume=4|page=505}}</ref>

The code, however, appears to have been known amongst the Visigoths by the title of ''Lex Romana'' or ''Lex Theodosii'', and it was not until the 16th century that the title of ''Breviarium'' was introduced to distinguish it from a recast of the code, the ''[[Lex Romana Curiensis]]'' which was introduced into northern Italy in the 9th century for the use of the Romans in [[Lombardy]]. This recast of the Visigothic code was published in the 18th century for the first time by Paolo Canciani in his collection of ancient laws entitled ''Barbarorum Leges Antiquae''. Another manuscript of this Lombard recast of the Visigothic code was discovered by [[Gustav Friedrich Hänel]] in the library of [[Abbey of St Gall|St Gall]].<ref name=EB1911/>

The chief value of the Visigothic code is as a source for Roman Law, including the first five books of the ''[[Codex Theodosianus|Theodosian Code]]'' (''Codex Theodosianus''),<ref name=Oxf>"Codex Theodosianus" in ''[[Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium|The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium]]'', [[Oxford University Press]], New York & Oxford, 1991, p. 475. {{ISBN|0195046528}}</ref> five books of the ''Sententiae Receptae'' of Julius Paulus. Until the discovery of a manuscript in the [[Verona Cathedral#Library|chapter library]] in [[Verona, Italy|Verona]], which contained the greater part of the ''[[Institutes (Gaius)|Institutes]]'' of Gaius, it was the only known work containing the institutional writings of [[Gaius (jurist)|Gaius]], an important ancient Roman jurist.<ref name=EB1911/>

The ''Breviary'' had the effect of preserving the traditions of Roman law in [[Aquitania]] and [[Gallia Narbonensis]], which became both [[Provence]] and [[Septimania]], thus reinforcing their sense of enduring continuity, broken in the [[Franks|Frankish]] north.{{cn|date=January 2019}}