Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Table of Treaties
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- PART I Peace treaties and international law from Lodi to Versailles (1454–1920)
- PART II Thinking peace: voices from the past
- 5 Vestigia pacis. The Roman peace treaty: structure or event?
- 6 The influence of medieval Roman law on peace treaties
- 7 The kiss of peace
- 8 Martinus Garatus Laudensis on treaties
- 9 The importance of medieval canon law and the scholastic tradition for the emergence of the early modern international legal order
- 10 The Peace Treaties of Westphalia as an instance of the reception of Roman law
- PART III Thinking peace: towards a better future
- PART IV Making peace: aspects of treaty practice
- PART V Conclusion
- Appendix
- Index
6 - The influence of medieval Roman law on peace treaties
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 July 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Table of Treaties
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- PART I Peace treaties and international law from Lodi to Versailles (1454–1920)
- PART II Thinking peace: voices from the past
- 5 Vestigia pacis. The Roman peace treaty: structure or event?
- 6 The influence of medieval Roman law on peace treaties
- 7 The kiss of peace
- 8 Martinus Garatus Laudensis on treaties
- 9 The importance of medieval canon law and the scholastic tradition for the emergence of the early modern international legal order
- 10 The Peace Treaties of Westphalia as an instance of the reception of Roman law
- PART III Thinking peace: towards a better future
- PART IV Making peace: aspects of treaty practice
- PART V Conclusion
- Appendix
- Index
Summary
From foedera pacis to foedera, paces
Peace treaties (foedera pacis) are mentioned by St Isidore of Seville (c. 560–636), the last of the Latin Fathers of the Church, in his famous enumerative definition of the law observed by all peoples (ius gentium). This text, written in the early seventh century, not only is a valuable example of the Roman law tradition within the Church, but later also became a legal norm (canon) of the medieval law code of the Latin Church, the Corpus iuris canonici, owing to the fact that in the twelfth century the learned monk Gratian (c. 1100–60) in Bologna quoted it in his handbook of canon law, the Decretum Gratiani. It is significant that the original Isidorian expression ‘foedera pacis’ in the official edition of the Decretum Gratiani in the sixteenth century, the so-called editio Romana, had been changed to ‘foedera, paces’. Obviously, pax had now acquired an autonomous meaning, which, as a legal term, it had never possessed in Roman times. We will encounter that wide legal concept of pax when we touch on the activities of the public notaries after the twelfth century.
The conclusion of treaties
International treaties – the solemn agreements between states or their rulers throughout the Middle Ages and into the sixteenth century – were concluded in the same way as in Antiquity, namely through declarations of the treaty-making parties, solemnly confirmed by mutual oaths.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Peace Treaties and International Law in European HistoryFrom the Late Middle Ages to World War One, pp. 147 - 161Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2004
- 6
- Cited by