55 A reconsideration of the ideal of stability in Byzantine monasticism made after the completion of the second recension of the Codex Justinianus in 534.186 That the Novels and the Codex were still known and referred to in the ninth and tenth centuries is evinced by another large legal project in the history of Byzantine law. Under Emperor Leo VI (r. 886-912), a project of imposing order in the existing translations, commentaries and summaries of Justinianic law that were circulating up to that point was undertaken.187 Around 900, this project resulted in the Basilica.188 The Basilica collected Justinianic law, and translated the Latin laws into Greek. Many of the Novels issued by Justinian (most of which were written in Greek already) were also included, including the ones that will be discussed below.189 Justinian’s Novels and the diversity of monastic practices Philip Booth observed that a major difference between the canons and the Novels is that the canons did not distinguish between different forms of monastic life, while the Novels specifically legislate for a communal form of monasticism in a monastery.190 Indeed, Novel 5, which will be discussed in more detail below, legislates on organised groups of monks living together in monasteries. However, it is clear that the Novel does not assume a communal form of monasticism as the only way of monastic life. A more inclusive understanding of monastic practices could, for example, already be read into the preamble. There, Justinian does not specify that his respect for monks is only for those in monasteries. Miller and Sarris translate ὁ ἐν ἀσκήσει μοναχικῇ βίος with ‘the ascetic life of the monastery’, but literally the Greek just reads ‘the life in monastic ascesis’ (or as a variant in another manuscript: ‘the monastic life in ascesis’).191 Possibly, Justinian’s respect expressed for monks in the preamble also included monks who did not live in monasteries, although the Novel regulates mostly for the communal monasteries. In chapter 3, monks who live on their own, ‘anchorites’ or ‘hesychasts’, are specifically recognised as ‘exempted from the 186 From then onwards the Codex Justinianus was to be the authoritative version of imperial law and was to be used for all future reference: one was not allowed anymore to cite from earlier collections, such as the Codex Theodosianus. The Codex was part of a larger legal project, also consisting of a legal textbook for law students (Institutes), and a collection of writing of legal scholars (Digest). Together the Codex, Institutes and Digest are known as the Corpus Iuris Civilis. Any new legislation was not part of the Codex and therefore ‘new’ law (Novellae Constitutiones, or Novels). For an introduction to Byzantine law, see (especially on the CIC) Penna and Meijering (2022), pp. 22–83. 187 Ibid., p. 116. 188 Ibid., pp. 123–129. The Basilica (and its scholia) has been edited and published in 17 volumes between 1945-1988 by H.J. Scheltema, D. Holwerda and N. van der Wal, and is now available online: https://referenceworks.brillonline. com/browse/basilica-online. On the political context in which the Basilica emerged and the imperial ideological aims that it aimed to achieve (‘directed at the recovery of ‘Romanness’ or Romanitas in the face of new threats to imperial legitimacy, represented in the West by the rising power of the Carolingians and the Papacy and in the Balkans by the First Bulgarian Empire’), see Chitwood (2017), pp. 16–44. 189 Novel 3 (Basilica III.2), Novel 5 (Basilica IV.1); Novel 133 (Basilica IV.1); Novel 123, which will also be mentioned below, is incorporated in various parts of the Basilica (Basilica III.1, Basilica IV.1, Basilica XXVIII.2), but a Novel issued by Leo VI, changes it (see the scholia of the Basilica III.1 and Basilica IV.1). 190 Booth (2014), p. 17. 191 A variance in Ms A: ὁ ἐν ἀσκήσει μοναχικὸς βίος. Justinian, Novel 5 preamble. 1
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