Out of Court Settlements in the Roman Empire

My research and habilitation project examines diverse ways in which disputes were settled without court involvement in antiquity. The primary topics are arbitration, whereby the resolution of a case is mandated to a neutral third party, and settlements, that is, agreements reached between the litigants in the form of contracts. The study will also embrace mixed forms, such as mediation by third parties and episcopal hearings, both of which could conclude in settlements. The study focuses on everyday legal praxis. Accordingly, documents, such as papyri, inscriptions and wax tablets, constitute the primary sources of the research. Juristic literature and imperial legislation will also be integrated as witnesses to the legal problems encountered in everyday life. As my reading of the sources up to the present has shown, comparison of normative texts and actual legal documents can reveal both differences of emphasis and occasional discrepancies between what is prescribed in theory and observed in practice. It is precisely the diverse nature of these two kinds of sources that will mutually facilitate their interpretation. A comprehensive analysis of these numerous, important documents, which simultaneously brings them into direct confrontation with the normative texts of the Roman law codes, has yet to be done. Such an analysis promises an important advancement in the social-legal history of the Later Roman Empire. In particular, it will go far towards resolving one of the still unanswered questions of late antiquity: Why, to judge from the sources, do out of court settlements seem to experience unprecedented popularity precisely in late antiquity, and do they in fact win the upper hand over the ordinary courts?