Matthijs Wibier

My research focuses on the political, social, and intellectual history of the Roman Empire (primarily the Principate but with forays into Late Antiquity). I am fascinated by the circulation of texts and information, and what people did with them. This includes studying intellectual traditions, the materiality of texts, and the interactions between texts and society. While I have worked primarily on Roman legal culture and legal literature, my interests span a wide range of topics, including ancient scholarship and philosophy, reading culture and education, Latin and Greek prose, administration and imperialism, and the experiences of individuals beyond the elite men who dominate our evidence. I am a huge proponent of epigraphy, papyrology, and the study of manuscript-based textual transmission. 

My research currently has three broad focal points:

(1) The Roman jurists of the earlier empire and the continued circulation of their works in later centuries. I am in the final stages of a monograph on Roman legal scholarship in the Early Empire and, with Professor Dario Mantovani (Collège de France), a large collaborative volume tracing the circulation, use, and reception of Roman legal literature in Late Antiquity. This latter volume is based on the ERC-funded project REDHIS.

(2) The correspondence of the Roman emperors, especially in the second and third centuries CE. I am in the early stages of a collaborative project “Epistulae: The Correspondence of the Roman Emperors”, with Professors Serena Connolly (Rutgers University), Elsemieke Daalder (University of Münster), and Zachary Herz (University of Colorado, Boulder). This project, which will lead to an Open Access online database, has received funding from Rutgers University, the Semple Fund, and the NEH.

(3) The law code known as the Lex Romana Visigothorum or Alaric’s Breviary. Not studied seriously since the 19th century, the manuscripts of this sixth-century collection contain a wealth of additional ancient and early medieval legal materials otherwise lost. The textual tradition as a whole is a monument to legal scholarship of the late Roman empire and the early Middle Ages. Due to its wide circulation, the LRV had a profound impact on the Western legal tradition.

PhD: University of St Andrews

MA: University of Leiden

2018 -2023 Lecturer in Ancient History, University of Kent, Canterbury,

2015 -2018 European Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Pavia,

2013 -2015 Lecturer in Classical and Ancient Mediterranean Studies, Pennsylvania State University,

Peer Reviewed Publications

Wibier, M. (2020. ) “The so-called Appendices to the Lex Romana Visigothorum: Compilation and Transmission of Three Late Roman Private Legal Collections” . Athenaeum, , 108 (1 ) ,150-180 (digital version OA)

Wibier, M. (2020. ) “The Breviary Part of MS Berlin lat. fol. 270 Was Copied from MS Ivrea XXXV (17)” . Athenaeum, , 108 (1 ) ,225-228 (digital version OA)

Wibier, M. (2019. ) “Orenius / Erennius / Herennius Modestinus in a Lost Manuscript of Isidore: A Reappraisal of the Problem” . Philologus, , 163 (2 ) ,320-330 (digital version)

Wibier, M. (2018. ) “Gaius on Pedantry and Erudition: The Quaestio Lance et Licio at Institutes 3.193” . Classical Philology, , 113 (4 ) ,485-494 (digital version)

Book Chapter

Wibier, M. (2024 ) "The View from the Margins: The Antiquarian Annotations of the Lex Romana Visigothorum in Five Medieval Manuscripts". In: Rechtshandschriften des 8. und 9. Jahrhunderts, ed. D. Leyendecker and D. Trump .(pp. 221-288). Ostfildern, Jan Thorbecke Verlag (including an edition and translation of 332 shared annotations)

D'Ottone Rambach, A. and M. Wibier (2024 ) “Visigothic Law and Canon Law in al-Andalus: Reconsidering the Leiden Glossary and the Vocabulista in Arabico“. In: Canon Law and Christian Societies Between Christianity and Islam. An Arabic Canon Collection from al-Andalus and its Transcultural Contexts, ed. M. Maser, J. Lorenzo Jiménez and G. Martin .(pp. 203-246).Turnhout, Brepols (digital version)

Wibier, M. (2022 ) “Marcus Antistius Labeo and the Idea of Legal Literature”. In: Roman Law and Latin Literature, ed. I. Ziogas and E. Bexley .(pp. 125-144). London, Bloomsbury (digital version)

Wibier, M. (2020 ) “On Homer and the Invention of Money: The Jurist Gaius in Servius’ Georgics Commentary (3.306-7)”. In: Le Istituzioni di Gaio: avventure di un bestseller, ed. U. Babusiaux and D. Mantovani .(pp. 513-529). Pavia, Pavia University Press (digital version OA)

Wibier, M. (2020 ) “Legal Education and Legal Culture in Gaul during the Principate”. In: Law in the Roman Provinces, ed. K. Czajkowski, B. Eckhardt and M. Strothmann .(pp. 462-485). Oxford, Oxford University Press (digital version)

Wibier, M. (2019 ) “Legal Education, Realpolitik, and the Propagation of the Emperor’s Justice”. In: The Impact of Justice on the Roman Empire. Proceedings of the Thirteenth Workshop of the International Network Impact of Empire (Gent, June 21-24, 2017), ed. O. Hekster and K. Verboven .(pp. 86-102). Leiden, Brill (digitial version OA)

Wibier, M. (2016 ) “Cicero’s Reception in the Juristic Tradition of the Early Empire”. In: Cicero’s Law: Rethinking Law in the Late Republic, ed. P. du Plessis .(pp. 100-122). Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press (digital version OA)

Wibier, M. (2014 ) “Transmitting Legal Knowledge: From Question-and-Answer Format to Handbook in Gaius’ Institutes”. In: Between Orality and Literacy: Communication and Adaptation in Antiquity, ed. R. Scodel .(pp. 356-373). Leiden, Brill (digital version)

Wibier, M. (2014 ) “The Topography of the Law Book: Common Structures and Modes of Reading”. In: The Roman Paratext: Frame, Texts, Readers, ed. L. Jansen .(pp. 58-72). Cambridge, Cambridge University Press (digital version)

Wibier, M. (2024 ) “Antistius Labeo, Marcus”. In: Oxford Classical Dictionary Online . Oxford, Oxford University Press

Wibier, M. (2024 ) “Legal Writing, Its Forms, and Influence”. In: The Cambridge History of Later Latin Literature, ed. A. Pelttari and G. Kelly . Cambridge, Cambridge University Press

Technical Reports

Wibier, M. (2023. ) Review: “Römisches Recht im Karolingerreich. Studien zur Überlieferungs- und Rezeptionsgeschichte der Epitome Aegidii. By Dominik Trump. Ostfildern: Jan Thorbecke Verlag. 2021” . Early Medieval Europe, 31 (2) ,345-347 (digital version)

Wibier, M. (2022. ) Review: “Law and Philosophy in the Late Roman Republic” . Bryn Mawr Classical Review , (digital version OA)

Wibier, M. (2021. ) Review: “Peter Riedlberger, Prolegomena zu den spätantiken Konstitutionen” . Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte: Romanistische Abteilung, 138 (1) ,771-776 (digital version)

Wibier, M. (2019. ) Review: “Diocletianus: de interessantste keizer van Rome” . Kleio: Tijdschrift voor Oude Talen en Antieke Cultuur, (digital version OA)

Wibier, M. (2015. ) Review: “‘Eclecticism’ as Productive Thinking, not a Branch of Stoicism” . The Classical Review, 65 (1) ,81-83 (digital version)