The earliest scholia that were appended to this work were, in the opinion of Zachariae (Hist. Jur. Gr. Rom. Delin. § 38), extracts selected in the reign of Constantinus Porphyrogenitus from the ancient translations of the Corpus Juris, and from the old commentators on the compilations of Justinian. Mortreueil, however (Histoire du Droit Byzantin, vol. ii. p. 123), thinks that these extracts were themselves part of the primitive official text, and were analogous to the of the Breviarium Alaricianum. Additions seem to have been made to the early scholia in the tenth and eleventh centuries, from the writings of later jurists. In the twelfth century a kind of glossa ordinaria was formed, compiled from the previous scholia. Thus the gloss was made up from the works of writers who were for the most part antecedent in date to the composition of the Basilica, their language being sometimes altered, and their references being accommodated to the existing state of the law. After the formation of the glossa ordinaria, new annotations were added, and, as in the manuscripts, the glossa ordinaria was a marginal commentary on the text, so the new annotations were written on the extreme margin that was left. In the West, the glossa ordinaria on the was formed, and received additions in a very similar manner.

Specimens of the last kind of annotation exist in the manuscripts of the 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, and 60th books of the Basilica. They appear for the most part to have been written by Hagiotheodorita, and to have been added by one of his disciples. Basil. ed. Fabrot. vol. vii. p. 121, 653.) These annotations are not given entire in the portions of the Basilica published by Cujas, nor in the edition of Fabrotus.

Fabricius (Bibl. Gr. vol. xii. p. 483), Heimbbach (De Basil Orig. p. 83), and Pohl (ad Suares. Nolit. Basil. p. 139, n. (λ)), identify the commentator on the Basilica with Nicolaus Hagiotheodorita, metropolitan of Athens, who lived under Manuel Comnenus in the time of Lucas, patriarch of Constantinople. (Bilsamo, ad Photii Nomocan. tit. 13. c. 2.) A letter, written in Greek by friend of Nicolaus Hagiotheodoria, lamenting his death, was copied by Wolfius from a Bodleian manuscript, and was first published by Fabricius. (Bibl. Gr. vol. xii. p. 483.)

Zachariae is disposed to consider the commentator on the Basilica as the same person with Michael Hagiotheodorita, who, in A. D. 1166, was logothertadromi under Manuel Commenus. (Leunclavius J. G. R. vol. i. p. 167, vol. ii. p. 192.)