We note the publication, open access, of the monographic article “Paul Krüger, Theodor Mommsen, and the Theodosian Code,” by Peter Riedlberger and Isabel Niemöller, in Roman Legal Tradition 17 (2021), 1–112. Here is the editor’s summary:
A very revealing set of correspondence between Theodor Mommsen and Paul Krüger is at the center of this fascinating article on the preparations for Mommsen’s edition of the Theodosian Code. Peter Riedlberger and Isabel Niemöller narrate the fraught relationship between the two great scholars: Krüger hoping to have his preparatory work used and acknowledged, Mommsen having a very different vision of the ultimate project and ultimately deciding to go it alone. Riedlberger and Niemöller burst many bubbles – e.g. that Mommsen’s powers were failing and that he appropriated Krüger’s work – but also use the correspondence to illustrate the widely misunderstood relation among the different sources for the Theodosian Code, above all relating to those texts which appear, sometimes profoundly altered, in the Codex Justinianus. The authors also make the case for a new edition of the Theodosian Code.–Dan Ernst
The article includes a transcription and English translation of 29 items of correspondence – published for the first time – interleaved with summaries of other correspondence and key facts from this monumental period in the history of Roman law scholarship.
