The present dissertation project investigates the origins, language and textual structure of the Codi, an Occitan legal text dating from the mid-12th century. Despite the paucity of extensive prose texts in Romance languages during this period, the Codi appears to be a complex legal treatise created ex nihilo, drawing primarily from the Latin Summa Trecensis and, akin to the latter, providing a synopsis of the initial nine books of the Codex Iustinianus. The dissertation project is driven by two overarching research questions: Firstly, an analysis of the text's composition will be conducted, with a particular focus on its reliance on the Summa Trecensis and other contemporary sources. Secondly, the focus will be on the linguistic design in order to identify the lexical, syntactic and textual innovations that the Codi introduces into Occitan (legal) language. Initial observations indicate that the Codi not only adopts existing Latin terminology, but also replaces it with new Occitan forms. This suggests the independent development of legal language and the emergence of a new discourse tradition. Notwithstanding the extensive history of research in this area, there is still no comprehensive linguistic-textual study that systematically includes the Latin sources and contemporary Occitan literature. The project makes a significant contribution to the history of the development of Romance writing by shedding light on the role of the Codi in the introduction of Roman law into the vernacular. The resulting findings could be significant not only for historically oriented Romance studies, but also for legal history and medieval reception studies.

Profile: Following my training as a jazz drummer and sound engineer at the Zurich University of the Arts (2006–2011) and subsequent many years of professional experience in these fields, I commenced a second degree programme at UZH in Comparative Romance Linguistics, Classical Philology, Medieval Latin, and Ancient Studies (bachelor's thesis: "La traduction latine du Codi de Richard de Pise : un commentaire linguistique"; master's thesis: "Metaliterarische Diskurse christlich-lateinischer Autoren über die Rhetorik im 3. und 4. nachchristlichen Jahrhundert"). Research interests: the emergence of Romance languages; the development of Romance writing; Vulgar Latin; the philosophy of language in antiquity and the Middle Ages; metaliterary and metalinguistic discourses.