Irnerius: The State of the Question

I can claim no particular expertise in Irnerius studies. I was, however, called upon to produce an entry on him for the Bio-Bibliographical Guide to Medieval and Early Modern Jurists (MEMJ) and had the occasion to review some of the recent literature on the topic.¹ The editor suggested that that review might be of interest to the readers of the Bulletin.

As Ennio Cortese notes at the beginning of his article on Irnerius in DBI, Irnerius is better known for the insoluble problems that his biography presents than for the number of datable facts about his life.² Or, as Jean Gaudemet put it more than fifty years ago: 'L'extrême rareté des sources laisse la porte ouverte à bien des hypothèses, que l'on veuille décrire les formes premières de l'enseignement bolonais ou préciser l'apport d'Irnerius à cette renaissance.'³

By the middle of the thirteenth century much could already have been legend. Odofredus (†1265), commenting on Dig. 1.1.6, describes Irnerius:⁴

Or signori, dominus Yrnerius fuit apud nos lucerna iuris, fuit enim primus qui docuit iura in civitate ista. Primo cepit studium esse in ciuitate ista in artibus, et cum studium esset destructum Rome, libri legales fuerunt deportati ad ciuitatem Rauenne et de Rauenna ad ciuitatem istam. De hoc studebantur in artibus libri legales, qui a civitate Ravenne fuerunt·portati ad civitatem istam. Quidam dominus Pepo cepit autoritate sua legere in legibus, tamen quicquid fuerit de scientia sua nullius nominis fuit. Dominus Irnerius docebat in civitate ista in artibus, cepit per se studere in libris nostris, et studendo cepit velle docere in legibus. Et ipse fuit maximi nominis et fuit primus illuminator scientie nostre, et quia primus fuit qui fecit glosas in libris nostris ipsum lucernam iuris nuncupamus. Unde dominus Yr. lucerna iuris super lege ista scripsit glosam interlinearem elegantissimis verbis, et bene dicit ipse ista litera dicit 'ius ciuile est quod neque a iure naturali vel gentium in totum recedit nec per omnia ei seruit.

Although this edition has been in print since 1943, it is not often quoted, preference being given to the printed edition of 1570. In particular, the critical edition has a whole sentence that the edition of 1570 lacks, the one beginning 'De hoc'. This may turn out to be relevant when we get to the question not whether Irnerius taught but how he taught.

How much of Odofredus' account can be believed? A medieval law school in Rome shortly prior to that at Bologna is a 'phantom'.⁵ If, however, we take Odofredus as referring to something that happened centuries before his time, there may be some truth to what he says. It is possible that the manuscripts that were used in the studium at Bologna had their ultimate origins in Ravenna.⁶ That does not correspond with what we know about the migration of the Codex Florentinus,⁷ but the use of that manuscript in the creation of the Bolognese version of the Digest does not seem to have come until quite late.⁸ That a lawyer or legal scholar called 'Pepo' existed is certain, though little is known about him.⁹ What do we know for certain about Irnerius?

Although there are those who have doubted the connection, we can probably equate him with a man who usually signed himself 'Wernerius'. His contemporaries turned that into 'Warnerius', and then made Romance out of it, 'Garnerius' or 'Guarneius', with many variants that add up linguistically to the same thing. 'Irnerius' or 'Yrnerius' seems not to occur until after his death.¹⁰ The name is obviously Germanic, and Irnerius' own spelling corresponds—with a Latin suffix—to the more common spelling of the name among German-speakers today. That a late 12th-century Summa quaestionum¹¹ and a mid- to late-13th-century additio to Dig. 1.2.2 by a student of Franciscus Accursius († 1293)¹² call him 'theutonicus' probably does not tell us much that we did not already know. It could refer to Irnerius' place of origin, but it need not.

What do we...