pandect

noun

1. (Ancient-Rome, historical)Usually in the plural form Pandects: a compendium or digest of writings on Roman law divided in 50 books, compiled in the 6th century C.E. by order of the Eastern Roman emperor Justinian I (c. 482–565).

   “After upwards of Thirty Years Study, and a painful Induſtry, in compiling A New Pandect or Complete Body of the Roman Civil Law; the Firſt Volume of this Undertaking craves Leave to appear in the World under the Patronage and Protection of your Lordſhip, [...]”

   “And altho' there are many relations of perfect hermaphrodites, creatures that poſſeſſed the power of both ſexes, and could both beget and conceive children, yet theſe relations are treated as fabulous, notwithſtanding ſome laws concerning them are found both in the Roman and Gallic pandect.”

   “But the juriſprudence of the Pandects is circumſcribed within a period of an hundred years, from the perpetual edict to the death of Severus Alexander: [...]”

   “And now, upon this third morning after your departure, things are but little better; for though the lamp burns in my den, and Voet on the Pandects hath his wisdom spread open before me, yet as I only use him as a reading-desk on which to scribble this sheet of nonsense to Darsie Latimer, it is probable the vicinity will be of little furtherance to my studies.”

2. (broadly, rare)Also in the plural form pandects: a comprehensive collection of laws; specifically, the whole body of law of a country; a legal code.

   “In a word, it [Scripture] is a Panary of holeſome foode, againſt fenowed traditions; a Phyſions-ſhop (Saint Baſill calleth it) of preſeruatiues against poiſoned hereſies; a Pandect of profitable lawes, againſt rebellious ſpirits; a treaſurie of moſt coſtly iewels, againſt beggarly rudiments; Finally, a fountaine of moſt pure water ſpringing vp vnto euerlaſting life.”

   “Give me the Pandects of the Law Divine, / Such was the Law made Moſes face to ſhine.”

3. (also, broadly, figuratively)A treatise or similar work that is comprehensive as to a particular topic; specifically (Christianity) a manuscript of the entire Bible.

   “The table of contents which we inſert here will give a juſt idea of the method with which this ſmall pandect of morality is compoſed.”

   “During a visit to Rome in 679–80, the Anglo-Saxon monk Ceolfrith from Northumbria acquired a magnificent pandect, an entire Bible bound as one volume, and brought it back to England with him, to his monastery of Wearmouth-Jarrow. We now know that the book that Ceolfrith bought in Rome was the so-called Codex Grandior, a pandect written under the supervision of Cassiodorus, the scholar-monk founder of Vivarium, in Calabria in the sixth century.”

   “At 8.330–2, which will be treated again below, Virgil seems to be offering some guidance about part of this tangle of 'problems' (although he was at the same time a pandect when it came to the Tiber and its nomenclature).”

   “Pandects, manuscript-volumes containing all the books of the Old and New Testaments, were enormous and very rare.”