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Caroline Humfress, ORTHODOXY AND THE COURTS IN LATE ANTIQUITY Oxford: Oxford University Press (www.oup.com), 2007. xiv + 344 pp. ISBN 9780198208419. £71.

Document Cited in Related
Vincent
Published date01 January 2010
DOI10.3366/E1364980909001188
AuthorPaul du Plessis
Pages173-174
Date01 January 2010

Caroline Humfress’ excellent new book is concerned with forensic argumentation in late Antiquity. It is divided into three sections, each containing a number of chapters organised around a central theme. The first section explores the subject of forensic practitioners and the development of late Roman law and contains a number of searching conclusions regarding the relationship between law and society and the interaction between law in theory and in practice. Not only does Humfress question the prevailing notion of “decline” in the Roman law of late Antiquity, she also demonstrates the fundamental importance of forensic legal practice for the development of Roman law. Although the focus of this book is legal practice rather than the content of the law, this group of chapters also has profound implications for modern understanding of the state of Roman law and it is hoped that Humfress’ future research will deal with the content of the law in late Antiquity as the only extant survey, set out in the works of Ernst Levy, is now greatly in need of updating.

The second section deals with forensic practitioners in the services of the late antique church. In these chapters, Humfress establishes that an education in Roman forensic rhetoric formed part of the education and teaching of important Christian figures of the period and that this in turn enabled the fledgling Church to define its relationship with the Roman state. This group of chapters sits well...

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