Byzantine Guardianship

During the eleven hundred years of its existence, the Byzan-1 1 ( 1 tine state preserved many of the rules and definitions of Ro- 

In order to understand the Byzantine system of orphan care and eventually to evaluate its effectiveness, this chapter will also indicate any cases where changes in the Roman law of guardianship produced unintended effects. Constantine s legislation to protect orphans had, in fact, made it more difficult for some children to find guardians. Were there other such instances of unintended effects in the history of Byzantine guardianship law  

In the second case, four brothers told Chomatianos that their legal guardian, an adult half-brother named Ganadaios, had taken every bit of their paternal property. Ganadaios argued that the time limit for reclaiming the property had passed and therefore that Chomatianos 

As we saw in Chapter Two, Classical Roman law recognized three types of guardians those who were appointed by testament (tutela tes-tamentaria), those who assumed the tutela based on their family relationship to the orphan (tutela legitima), and those who were appointed by magistrates (tutela Atiliana also known as tutela dativa). Byzantine law retained these distinctions in practice to the end of the empire, with the exception of the period of Iconoclastic law (741 867). In fact, Justinian s Institutes (circa 533) preserved the clearest description of the three types of guardianship to survive from Classical, Postclassical, or Byzantine times.  

Das rdmische Privatrecht, 2 225, and note 9. A law of Leo I (JCod, 5.30.3), issued in 472, claimed that Constantine was the emperor who abrogated the rules of Claudius and reestablished the traditional agnatic system. 

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