Institutes left us by the ancients, and chiefly from the
commentaries of our Gaius, both in his Institutes and in his work
on daily affairs, and also from many other commentaries, were
presented to us by the three learned men we have above named. We
have read and examined them and have accorded to them all the
force of our constitutions.

Receive, therefore, with eagerness, and study with cheerful
diligence, these our laws, and show yourselves persons of such
learning that you may conceive the flattering hope of yourselves
being able, when your course of legal study is completed, to
govern our empire in the different portions that may be entrusted
to your care.

Given at Constantinople on the eleventh day of the calends of
December, in the third consulate of the Emperor Justinian, ever
August (533)[28]

(4) The Novellae (Novels), or new statutes issued by Justinian between
the final edition of the Code and his death (534-565). These are really
a continuation of the Code, but they were never officially collected.

The Code and the Institutes were known and studied in Italy throughout
the Dark Ages, but the Digest, much the largest and most important part
of the Corpus Juris, was almost wholly neglected, if not unknown, until
the time of Irnerius of Bologna (_c._ 1070-1130). He and his co-laborers
collected and arranged the scattered parts of the entire Body of Civil
Law, and in particular introduced the Digest to western Europe. "Without
the Digest the study of Roman Law was in a worse position than the study
of Aristotle when he was known only from the Organon." In a most