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Legal History: Continental Legal History

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This page contains the websites that I currently find the most useful for working with the primary sources of Continental Legal History in the original language

Continental Legal History - Primary Sources

Primary Texts Online in Original Lanugage

Roman Law Texts
Edited by Robert G. Natelson from the University of Montana School of Law. Good source for downloading the Roman law collections of the Emperor Justinian in Latin. Available in both PDF and Word formats.
The Roman Law Library
By Y. Lassard & A. Koptev. This site, hosted by the Université Pierre-Mendès-France in Grenoble, contains a vast collection of Roman law, including the complete text of the Institutes, Digest, and Code, and portions of the Novels in Latin.
Decretum Gratiani - Friedberg edition
Part I of the Corpus Juris Canonici. Includes both digital text and images of the Friedberg edition. Recent "improvements" in this site have made it more difficult to access the original pages of the Friedberg edition, critical because of the notes. The easiest way to do it is to select a page (Spalte) at random and navigate from there to the page you want.
Decretales Gregorii IX - Friedberg edition
Part II of the Corpus Juris Canonici. Includes both digital and text images of the Friedberg edition. Works only in Internet Explorer and requires registration.
Decretum Gratiani - Roman edition
Part I of the Corpus Juris Canonici with the gloss. Available as digital images that can be downloaded as PDFs. From the Bibliothèque Cujas in Paris.
Decretales Gregorii IX - Roman edition
Part II of the Corpus Juris Canonici with the gloss. Available as digital images that can be downloaded as PDFs. From the Bibliothèque Cujas in Paris.
Liber Sextus of Boniface VIII, the Clementinae of John XXII, and the Extravagantes - Roman edition
Part III of the Corpus Juris Canonici (the three final official decretal collections) with the gloss. Available as digital images that can be downloaded as PDFs. From the Bibliothèque Cujas in Paris.
Canon Law Digital Edition - Corpus juris canonci cum glossis (Roman edition)
Digital facsimile edition of the Corpus Canonicum Glossatum promulgated by Gregory XIII in 1580. Includes all three parts. Searchable by either keyword or browsing. Produced by the UCLA Digital Library, in collaboration with the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies.
Corpus Juris Civilis cum Glossis - Godefroy edition
Only volume 1 is available here: the Digestum vetus, Book 1, title 1 through Book 24, title 22, fragment 11. Though difficult to navigate, it is a good source for digital images that can be downloaded as PDFs. Part of the Gallica database from Bibliothèque nationale de France.
Die digitalen Monumenta Germaniae Historica
Includes a selection of the great Monumenta Germaniae Historica, a collection of medieval historical sources for the study of Germany, Austria and Switzerland in the Middle Ages, with an emphasis on the period before 1000. Consists of five main divisions: Antiquitates, Diplomata, Epistolae, Leges and Scriptores, and numerous subseries. Created by Deutsches Institut für Erforschung des Mittelalters in cooperation with Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek.
Migne's Patrologia Latina
Electronic version of the 1st edition of Jacques-Paul Migne's Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Series Latina. Contains all 221 volumes, which includes the original 217 volumes (1844-1855) plus the later four volumes of indexes (1862-1865). Covers the works of the Church Fathers from Tertullian in 200 AD to the death of Pope Innocent III in 1216, including all prefatory material, original texts, critical apparatus and indexes. Major figures included are Hilary, Ambrose, Jerome, Boethius, Isidore, Bede, Peter Damian, Bernard, Augustine, Peter Lombard, Peter Chrysologus and many others. Migne's column numbers, essential references for scholars, included. Text is primarily in Latin, but includes an English language search engine and help. Cross-search option allows users to find search terms in both the Patrologia Latina Database and the Acta Sanctorum Database. Brill's edition of Jan Frederik Niermeyer's Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus is available from the search page. Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina reference numbers are also included. (Harvard ID and PIN required)