The Law of Citations
The 426 law naming five jurists as the canonical authorities on Roman law, and directing judges to resolve their disagreements by counting votes among them.
Legislation · 426Sources & confidence: High confidence
Checked 2 October 2026 · AI-assisted review
Text of CTh. 1.4.3, named authorities, corroboration and tie-breaking rules.
- Lex citationis — Mommsen and Meyer text
Five named jurists, conditional authority of earlier writers they cite, majority rule, Papinian’s tie-break and residual judicial choice; 7 November 426.
- Wikidata entity API: Law of Citations
Inspected entity label and description for identifier matching only; does not validate the work’s argument.
What this check doesn’t establish
- Textual rule checked; not a study of actual court practice or the law’s effectiveness.
Confidence applies to the scope above, not every claim made by the underlying source. How confidence works
The law names Papinian, Paulus, Ulpian, Modestinus and Gaius as authorities. It also admits earlier writers cited by them when their texts can be authenticated, so the rule does not simply exclude everyone outside a five-person canon.
On disagreement, the larger number prevails; Papinian’s side prevails in an equal division when applicable. If the tie cannot be resolved in that way, the judge retains a choice.
The essay interprets this procedural solution as evidence of a legal system struggling with accumulated authority. That explanation is an argument about the law, not a statement made by its text.
In the essays
- For the Love of Law
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Record history
Catalogue source: knowledge/works/law-of-citations.md
Generated by claude-code/claude-opus-5 on 2026-07-25