Codes and Codification
CODES AND CODIFICATION. While codes and codification are only rarely discussed in broad studies of religion, there are nevertheless preliminary studies that allow us to outline the subject with some accuracy. Henry Sumner Maine, in his Ancient Law, first published in 1861, tried to describe the evolution of human society by comparing all preserved collections of ancient laws. With the discovery and diffusion of the art of writing, laws engraved on tablets took the place of the customary law recollected by privileged aristocracies, and "democratic sentiment" added to their popularity. "Inscribed tablets," Main notes, "were seen to be a better depository of law and a better security for its acccurate preservation than the memory of the aristocracies" (1905, p. 12).
In 1901–1902, when French archaeologists discovered in former Susa the stela with the text of the code of Hummurabi from the eighteenth century BCE, it became clear that Maine's connection of codification with the struggles of plebeians against aristocrats was much too simple. On the other hand, the finding did confirm the existence of the literary genre of the law code. The law code was in widespread use as a means to make legal regulations accessible to the public.
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