Poster for FIEC 2025:

Defining disability in the Justinianic legal writings

Further information on the research methodology

This poster originates in the preparatory steps of my dissertation, where I use content analysis as a quantitative method to arrive at an overview of the appearance of what we could now term people with disabilities contained within the Corpus Iuris Civilis.

The first question is naturally about the applicability of the term disability in antiquity, when we consider the modern and theoretically-charged meaning of the term disability. As promised in the abstract, I shall not delve deep into this issue here. Suffice it to say that I am persuaded that we lose out a lot in disconnecting the ancient study of imperfection and the modern field of disability history.

This is naturally in conflict with Laes’s methodology and the suggestion of Laes, Goodey and Rose to use the term disparity rather than disability. However, following my methodology, it does seem possible to use the term disability when working with specific Roman sources and using specific types of definitions of disability.

The first attempt at defining disability for the purposes of my quantitative research came from using the social definition. The coding manual therefore said to look for oppression. This, however, logically resulted in the inclusion of a variety of marginalised people in the results. Just as an example, the existence of slaves implies in it the subordination of the slave to the power of someone else (Inst. 1.3.2). This is clearly an instance of oppression where we are not talking about disability.

The second attempt then lead to taking into account Thomas’s theory that impairment was automatically included in the origins of the social theory of disability. This, however, still covered only a section of the results. Looking for impairment focused the search into health-related issues, but the search for just oppression meant that sometimes, mental gymnastics had to be undertaken to define an excerpt as falling within the category. It seemed to me that, looking at the sources, wider societal actions than just oppression were taking place in the text.

An example of the mental gymnastics is the statement “A blind man can adopt a child or be adopted“ found at D. 1.7.9. This, in my view, is a clear statement that no oppression is taking place in this matter in particular against those with visual impairment. Through looking at the statement as an expression of the ban on oppression, we might arrive at a potential tendency of the society to oppress the person with visual impairment in question were it not for this ban. As stated above, a relation to oppression can be found, but it is difficult.

Thus, I have arrived at the definition I have chosen to use for the rest of my dissertation. This is the definition of Shakespeare, who advocates for both internal factors (such as impairment or the reaction to ill-health) and external factors (reaction of society ranging from positive to negative). This has shown itself much more likely to cover all the cases where what we nowadays call disability can occur.

As a point of interest, based on this definition, I search the Corpus Iuris Civilis for individuals with impairment (this is the only internal factor available in the source material) and for reactions of the society towards the individual with impairment as compared to the reaction of society towards a healthy individual.

As for my preliminary results, I am seeing a lot of examples that fit within this modern definition of disability. Thus, it seems that the term disability might be used when looking at legal sources of the Roman era and when using Shakespeare’s definition of disability.

This would allow us to further investigate the meaning of the word disability in antiquity, to be able to encounter specific situations which according to the Romans did or did not lead to disability, and to thus have available a different “vector“ of examination,

Bibliography:

Goodley, Dan. Dis/Ability Studies: Theorising Disablism and Ableism. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge (Publisher), 2014.

Laes, Christian, ed. Disability in Antiquity. Rewriting Antiquity. London ; New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2017, p. 5 - 6.

Laes, Christian. Disabilities and the Disabled in the Roman World: A Social and Cultural History. Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2018.

Laes, Christian, C. F. Goodey, and Martha L. Rose, eds. Disabilities in Roman Antiquity: Disparate Bodies, a Capite Ad Calcem. Mnemosyne, Supplements. History and Archaeology of Classical Antiquity, Volume 356. Leiden ; Boston: Brill, 2013, p. 19-23.

Shakespeare, Tom. Disability Rights and Wrongs Revisited. Second edition. London ; New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2014.

Thomas, Carol. ‘How Is Disability Understood? An Examination of Sociological Approaches’. Disability & Society 19, no. 6 (October 2004): 569–83. https://doi.org/10.1080/0968759042000252506.

Graphs and related data:

Skoupá, Lenka (2025). Institutiones Iustiniani - content analysis: coding sheet and results. figshare. Dataset. https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.28254107.v1

Further details on the poster itself

Bibliography:

1/ Laes, Christian, ed. Disability in Antiquity. Rewriting Antiquity. London ; New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2017, p. 5 - 6.

Laes, Christian. Disabilities and the Disabled in the Roman World: A Social and Cultural History. Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2018.

2/ Laes, Christian, C. F. Goodey, and Martha L. Rose, eds. Disabilities in Roman Antiquity: Disparate Bodies, a Capite Ad Calcem. Mnemosyne, Supplements. History and Archaeology of Classical Antiquity, Volume 356. Leiden ; Boston: Brill, 2013, p. 19-23.

3/ Shakespeare, Tom. Disability Rights and Wrongs Revisited. Second edition. London ; New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2014.

4/ Thomas, Carol. ‘How Is Disability Understood? An Examination of Sociological Approaches’. Disability & Society 19, no. 6 (October 2004): 569–83. https://doi.org/10.1080/0968759042000252506.

Graphs and related data:

Skoupá, Lenka (2025). Institutiones Iustiniani - content analysis: coding sheet and results. figshare. Dataset. https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.28254107.v1

Graphs were created on the basis of the data I have gathered for the Institutiones using the content analysis method and the definition of Shakespeare.

Pictures used:

TOMBSTONE OF CLAUDIUS AGATHEMERUS AND MYRTALE, Ashmolean museum, Oxford. Photo taken on 20/7/2024.