Cujacius
（Jacques de Cujas). A distinguished expounder of the Roman law. He
was born at Toulouse in 1522, the son of a tanner, and after being educated in the law,
lectured at Cahors in 1554, becoming in the following year professor in the University of
Bourges. From this seat of learning he was called to Valence in 1557, returning to Bourges in
1576. He died October 4th, 1590. Cujacius won a remarkable reputation by his study of the MSS.
of the Roman juristic writings, and by his brilliant emendations that served to remove much of
the obscurity that had enveloped the nicer questions of Roman law. These emendations were
published in part in the work entitled
Observationum et Emendationum Libri
XVIII—a treatise that contemporary writers styled
opus
incomparabile. He also published editions of the Institutes, Pandects, etc., of
Justinian, a part of the Theodosian Code, a Greek version of the Justinian laws, besides
commentaries on the
Consuetudines Feudorum, and on several books of the
Decretals. His
Observationes included a wide range of classical reading and
criticism, so that he is frequently cited by philologists and students of the ancient
literatures as well as by jurists.
The first complete collection of the writings of Cujacius was the edition of Fabrot, 10
vols.
(Paris, 1658), reprinted at Naples
(1757); and at Venice and
Modena in 11 vols.
(1758-82). See Spangenberg,
Cujacius und seine Zeitgenossen (Leipzig, 1822).
