Orthodoxy and the Courts in Late Antiquity
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loginIt is the aim of this book to explore the remarkable culture of forensicargumentation that flourished during late antiquity, rather than theintellectual system of Roman lawper se. Whilst my research has focusedprimarily on the later Roman Empire, I hope that legal historians,theologians, and medievalists alike might find the arguments in thisbook of interest. The project began its formal life as a doctoral thesisat St John’s College, Cambridge, supervised by Peter Stein in its firstyear, and then by Peter Garnsey; submitted under the literal, ratherthan chic, designation: ‘Forensic Practice in the Development of Romanand Ecclesiastical Law in Late Antiquity, with Special Reference to theProsecution of Heresy.’ I owe the incomparably more elegant title ofthe monograph to Jill Harries, with gratitude. The germ of the idea forthe doctoral thesis in fact took hold during a supervision on St Augustinewith George Garnett, held during the Lent term of my first year as anundergraduate, under an apple (as opposed to a fig) tree. The presentbook has preserved essentially the same structure and line of argumentas the doctoral thesis, but the text itself has been rewritten extensively,partly in order to make certain revisions and modifications in the lightof important recent scholarship (as noted in the Introduction below),but also because my own intellectual perspectives have, or so it seems tome at least, broadened considerably over the last six years.
