DECRETALS IN DOESKIN
CUJAS, Jacques.
Iacobi Cuiacii celeberrimi I. C. recitationes in II. et IV. libros Decretalium. Nunc primum in lucem editae.
Speyer, Bernhard Albin, 1594.
4to, pp. [8], 569, [1, blank], [38]; woodcut device to title, woodcut initials, head-, and tailpieces; light stain to title, some creasing to first three leaves, a few quires slightly loose; a good copy in near-contemporary doeskin over pasteboards; some wormholes to spine, some wear to extremities and abrasions to covers; contemporary marginalia to pp. 145–6 (slightly trimmed) and p. 178.
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Iacobi Cuiacii celeberrimi I. C. recitationes in II. et IV. libros Decretalium. Nunc primum in lucem editae.
First edition of these commentaries on the Decretals of Gregory IX by the famous French jurist Jacques Cujas (1522–1590), printed in Speyer and bound in doeskin.
Prominent among the school of legal humanists, Cujas gained a Europe-wide reputation for his work on Roman law, and on Justinian in particular. As a teacher at the universities of Valence and Bourges, he attracted outstanding pupils from all over Europe, including Joseph Justus Scaliger and Jacques Auguste de Thou.
The commentaries gathered here were, according to the preface, dictated in Bourges a few years before Cujas’s death, and cover the second and fourth books of Gregory IX’s Decretals. There is much on marriage and related subjects, including adultery, divorce, incest, polygamy, betrothal, wives and husbands, and children. Other topics covered include war, judges and witnesses, oaths and evidence, monks and popes, the laity, and leprosy. The few marginalia demonstrate a contemporary reader’s interest in confessing to a crime, and witnesses.
Three copies on Library Hub (Edinburgh, RCP, TCD); two copies traced in the US (Emory, LoC).
USTC 664668; VD16 C 6220.
