legal glossator

legal glossator, in the Middle Ages, any of the scholars who applied methods of interlinear or marginal annotations (glossae) and the explanation of words to the interpretation of Roman legal texts. The age of the legal glossators began with the revival of the study of Roman law at Bologna at the end of the 11th century. One of their first tasks was to reconstruct Justinian’s Digest, the 6th-century compilation of Roman law, by comparing the existing manuscripts.

In the middle of the 13th century Franciscus Accursius, a professor at Bologna and the last of the glossators, undertook the task of collecting and arranging the vast number of annotations made by his predecessors in one complete work. This compilation, the Glossa ordinaria, supplemented by the annotations of Accursius himself, was known as the Glossa magna (Great Gloss). For nearly a century its authority was no less than that of the original Roman texts.

The glossators laid the foundation for the study of Roman law in Europe at a time when increasing commercial relations among individuals and among states were soon to necessitate an advanced legal system. Whether they were concerned with these trends or even with the current legal needs of their day is open to doubt. Their discussions tended to be academic rather than practical. It was the task of their successors of the 14th century, the commentators or postglossators, to effect a closer liaison between the revived Roman law and the law of the Italian cities and to find a way to apply Roman law to the practical legal needs of the day.

The influence of the glossators and commentators spread beyond Italy. Many students were attracted to the Bologna school, from which lawyers went out into governments and courts of Europe. Their work affected both the processes and the substance of legal thinking for many centuries.