ULPIAN - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

ULPIANAuthored

The Law Mind • 838 words

Definition

Ulpian (Domitius Ulpianus, c. 170–228 CE) was a Roman jurist of the classical period whose writings became among the most cited and authoritative sources in the development of Western private law. He served as a senior legal official under the Severan emperors, eventually holding the position of Praetorian Prefect under Alexander Severus before his assassination in 228 CE.

Ulpian's significance in legal research is not biographical but textual: approximately one-third of Justinian's Digest (533 CE) is drawn from Ulpian's works. His treatises — including his massive commentary Ad Sabinum and his commentary Ad Edictum — were systematically excerpted by Justinian's compilers, making Ulpian the single largest contributor to the Corpus Juris Civilis. Because of this, Ulpian's opinions function as primary sources for the Roman law that underlies modern civil law systems across Europe, Latin America, and Louisiana.

Ulpian is also credited with several foundational formulations that appear throughout Western legal literature, including the tripartite division of law into ius naturale (natural law), ius gentium (law of nations), and ius civile (civil law), and the celebrated definition of justice as the constant and perpetual will to render to each person what is owed to them — iustitia est constans et perpetua voluntas ius suum cuique tribuendi.

Common Confusion

Ulpian is sometimes conflated with Papinian (d. 212 CE) and Paul (Iulius Paulus, fl. early 3rd century CE), the other two dominant jurists of the classical Roman period. All three appear extensively in the Digest and are frequently cited together in civil law scholarship. The distinction matters in research: Papinian was regarded by Justinian's compilers as the superior authority on contested points and received special treatment under the Law of Citations (426 CE), while Ulpian was the more prolific systematizer and is far more numerically present in the Digest. Paul and Ulpian were contemporaries and colleagues; their opinions sometimes conflict within the Digest itself.

Why It Matters in Research

Researchers encountering Ulpian in primary sources are almost always working with texts mediated through Justinian's compilation. The original works of Ulpian do not survive independently; what exists are the fragments preserved in the Digest, the Institutes, and the Code. This has two practical consequences: first, the text attributed to Ulpian may have been interpolated — altered or paraphrased — by Justinian's compilers (the so-called interpolation problem, heavily debated in 19th and early 20th century Romanist scholarship); second, citations to "Ulpian" in secondary literature typically refer to Digest fragment locations (e.g., D. 1.1.1, D. 50.17.2) rather than to any free-standing work.

In the Law Mind corpus, Ulpian's name appears most frequently in three contexts: (1) Roman law treatises and institutional works tracing the civil law tradition; (2) natural law discussions invoking the ius naturale / ius gentium / ius civile tripartition; and (3) comparative law scholarship contrasting Roman and common law approaches to obligations, property, and persons.

Researchers using historical dictionaries for this term will find sparse entries. Rapalje & Lawrence does not contain a dedicated entry for Ulpian. The maxims and broadsides attributed to Ulpian circulate in the corpus under the Latin phrases themselves — researchers looking for Ulpian's jurisprudential contributions should search by maxim or by Digest fragment rather than by name.

For researchers in Louisiana law, the Louisiana Civil Code's Roman law lineage makes Ulpian's Digest fragments indirectly but genuinely relevant to understanding the civilian concepts underlying the Code's text on obligations, property, and succession.

Historical Dictionary Support

Rapalje & Lawrence does not contain a standalone entry for Ulpian. The entry window provided in the source material covers adjacent Latin maxims (ubi cessat remedium ordinarium, ubi lex non distinguit) and does not address Ulpian directly. This absence is itself informative: 19th-century Anglo-American legal dictionaries generally treated Roman jurists as background scholarship rather than as practicing legal vocabulary, reflecting the common law tradition's formal distance from the civil law.

The authoritative historical treatment of Ulpian as a legal source occurs instead in Romanist scholarship — Friedrich Carl von Savigny's Geschichte des römischen Rechts im Mittelalter, Theodor Mommsen's editorial work on the Digest, and Paul Krüger's critical editions — none of which appear in the standard common law dictionary tradition. Researchers seeking serious textual analysis of Ulpian's fragments should look to those sources and to the modern Englished edition of the Digest by Watson (1985) rather than to the common law dictionary shelf.

Jurisdictional Note

Ulpian's direct legal authority is confined to jurisdictions operating within the civil law tradition — France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Louisiana, Quebec, and Latin American countries — where the Corpus Juris Civilis provides foundational doctrinal structure. In common law jurisdictions, Ulpian appears as historical background rather than binding or persuasive authority, though natural law theorists in the common law tradition (Blackstone among them) drew on Ulpian's tripartite division of law.

ULPIANmain

Rapalje & Lawrence • 1883

(1305) tum: Where any thing is impeded by some one particular cause, that cause being removed, the impediment is taken away. Ubi cessat remedium ordinarium ibi decurritur ad extraordinarium et Ubi lex non distinguit, nec nos distinguere debemus (7 Co. 5b): Where the law does not distinguish, neither ought we to distinguish. Ubi major pars est, ibi totum (Moor nunquam decurritur ad extraordi578): Where the greater part is, there the narium ubi valet ordinarium: Where whole is. That is, majorities govern. the ordinary remedy fails, recourse is had to the extraordinary remedy, but recourse is never had to the extraordinary where the ordinary is sufficient. Ubi culpa est, ibi pœna subesse debet: Where there is culpability, there punishment ought to be submitted to. Ubi damna dantur victus victori in expensis condemnari debet (2 Inst. 289): Where damages are awarded the unsuccessful party ought to be condemned in costs to the successful party. Ubi eadem ratio, ibi eadem lex; et de similibus idem est judicium (7 Co. 18): Where the same reason exists, there the same law prevails; and of things similar, the judgment is similar. Ubi factum nullum, ibi fortia nulla: Where there is no principal fact, there can be no accessory. Ubi jus, ibi remedium (Co. Litt. 197 b): Where there is a right there is a remedy. This maxim was the foundation of equity interfering in aid of the common law, when (but for some technical defect) the common law itself would have given the remedy. An action will lie for an injury although no actual damage be sustained, as in the case of Ashby v. White, (temp. 2 Anne 1704, 14 St. Tr. 695,) where it was decided that an action lay against a returning officer for refusing to admit the vote of a duly qualified elector, although the persons for whom he tendered his votes were elected. There may be a "damnum absque injuria" (loss without a wrongful act) for which no action will lie. Thus, no action will lie against my neighbor, who builds on his own land a mill, whereby the profits of my mill (built on adjoining property) are diminished, although in the case put I may have suffered considerable loss. This maxim formed the root of all equitable decisions, and was the basis upon which the Court of Chancery originally acted, when interfering with courts of law, or in supplying remedies for those wrongs which the Jatter failed to redress. Ubi lex aliquem cogit ostendere causam, necesse est quod causa sit justa et legitima (2 Inst. 289): Where the law compels a man to show cause, it is necessary that the cause be just and lawful. Ubi lex est specialis, et ratio ejus generalis generaliter accipienda est (2 Inst. 43): Where the law is special, and the reason of it general, it ought to be taken as being general. Ubi non est annua renovatio, ibi decimæ non debent solvi: Where therc is no annual renovation, there tithes ought not to be paid. Ubi non est condendi auctoritas, ibi non est parendi necessitas (Dav. 69): Where there is no authority for establishing a rule, there is no necessity of obeying it. Ubi non est directa lex, standum est arbitrio judicis, vel procedendum ad similia (Ellesm. Postn. 41): Where there is no direct law, the opinion of the judge is to be taken, or references to be made to similar cases. Ubi non est lex, ibi non est transgressio, quoad mundum (4 Co. 16b): Where there is no law, there is no transgression, as far as relates to the world. Ubi non est principalis non potest esse accessorius (4) Co. 43): Where there is no principal, there cannot be an accessory. Ubi nullum matrimonium ibi nulla dos: Without matrimony there is no dower. As to the application of this maxim, see Co. Litt. 32. Ubi quid generaliter conceditur, inest hæc exceptio, si non aliquid sit contra jus fasque (10 Co.78): Where a thing is conceded generally this exception arises, that there shall be nothing contrary to law and right. Ubi verba conjuncta non sunt sufficit alterutrum esse factum (D. 50, 17, 110, s. 3): Where words are not conjoined, it is enough if one or other be complied with. UBICATION, or position. - Encycl. Lond. UBIETY.- Local UDAL.-Allodial (q. v.)

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