Irnerius, at the urging of Countess Matilda…
1125 CE
Irnerius, at the urging of Countess Matilda of Tuscany, had begun to devote himself to the study of jurisprudence, taking the Justinian code as a guide.
After teaching jurisprudence for a short while in Rome he had returned to Bologna, where he founded a new school of jurisprudence in 1084 or 1088, which soon rivaled the law school of Ravenna.
Some jurisprudence had been taught at Bologna, before Irnerius founded his school, by Pepo and a few others, and a tradition of jurisprudence had developed at Pavia since the mid-ninth century.
He has introduced the custom of explaining the Roman law by means of glosses, which originally were meager interlinear elucidations of the text, but since the glosses were often too extensive to be inserted between the lines of the text, he had begun to write them on the margin of the page, thus being the first to introduce the marginal glosses which afterwards came into general use.
After the death of Pope Paschal II, Irnerius had defended the rights of Emperor Henry V in the papal election and upheld the legality of the election of the imperial antipope Gregory VIII.
After 1116, he appears to have held some office under the emperor.
He dies, perhaps during the reign of the emperor Lothair III, but certainly before 1140.
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Southwest Europe
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