Elective Course in History. Looking Through the Law: Using Legal Evidence for Late Antiquity 2900-HAMC-K2-LTLA

This module concerns the uses (and abuses) of legal evidence and will examine how we as late antique historians can use it. It will examine the different types of surviving legal evidence including law codes – both official like the Theodosian Code and unofficial like the Comparison of Roman and Mosaic Law – inscriptions such as Diocletian’s Edict on Maximum Prices, and imperial letters including those embedded in ecclesiastical histories and other correspondence . We will explore the gulf between rhetoric and reality, and the real life impacts these laws and collections had on the ancient world. We will also consider how this evidence has been used by scholars, and how we can therefore do history while using this evidence.