How did Roman law spread around the world?

Answer 1

The influence of Roman civil law spread through Europe with the rediscovery of a collection of books called Corpus Juris Civilis(Body of Civil Law), which was also dubbed the Justinian Code in the 16th century. It was commissioned by the emperor Justinian I (or the Great, reigned 527-565) and was published in a second edition in 534.

This work was forgotten after the fall of the Roman Empire until it was discovered in a library in Pisa in 1070. It had a big impact because many people were impressed with the key principles of Roman civil law: citizenship and citizenship rights, equality under the law, the right to a trial and the right to appeal, innocent until proven guilty, that the burden of proof rest on the accuser and not on the accused, and that an unfair law can be repealed. It also included important essays on law and student textbooks which facilitated the study of law. Eventually, though this work, Roman civil law became the foundation of the civil laws of many modern countries.

The Corpus Juris Civilis came in four parts:

1) The Codex (book) which was a review of imperial laws going back 400 years (to the time of Hadrian). It scrapped obsolete or unnecessary laws, made changes when necessary and clarified obscure passages. Its aim was to put the laws in a single book (previously they were written on many different scrolls), harmonise conflicting view among jurists which arose from centuries of poorly organised development of Roman law and have a coherent body of law. It consists of 12 books, 1 book covers ecclesiastical law, the duties of high officers and sources of law, 7 cover private law, 1 criminal law and 3 administrative laws.

2) The Digesta which was a collection of fragments taken from essays on laws written by jurists (mostly from the 2nd and 3rd centuries) and which expressed the private opinions of legal experts. Most were from Ulpian (40%) and Paulus (17%). It was a large amount of writing which was condensed in 50 books. It was used as an advanced law student textbook.

3) The Institutiones was a textbook for first year law students written by two professors. It was a series of extracts from statements on the basic institutions of Roman law from the teaching books by 'writers of authority.' In was largely based on the texts of Gaius, a jurist of the 2nd century AD.

4) The Novellae Constitutiones, which contained laws recently issued by Justinian.

Answer 2

The great contribution of the Romans in law is the Coprus Juris Civilis (Body of Civil Law)

The influence of Roman civil law spread through Europe with the rediscovery of this collection of books called which was also dubbed the Justinian Code in the 16th century. It was commissioned by the emperor Justinian I (or the Great, reigned 527-565). 529. It was a very comprehensive collection of extracts from four centuries of Roman law. It put the laws in a single book (previously they were written on many different scrolls) and scrapped obsolete or unnecessary laws, made changes when necessary, clarified obscure passages. Its aim was to harmonise conflicting views among jurists which arose from centuries of poorly organised development of Roman law and have a uniform and coherent body of law. It also included collections of essays by famous Roman jurists in two student textbooks, one for first year law students and one for advanced students. .

This work was forgotten until it was discovered in a library in Pisa in 1070. It had a big impact because many people were impressed with the key principles of Roman civil law: It also included important essays on law and student textbooks which facilitated the study of law. This work was studied by law students at universities in Europe and, though this, Roman civil law became the foundation of the civil laws of many modern countries.

The first university in Europe, Bologna University, became important because of its law faculty. It had four professors who specialised in the study of the Digest (as it was then known). It attracted law students from around Europe. The work at this university laid the foundations of Medieval Roman law. The use of the Digest spread around Western Europe and the fledgling profession of lawyers was trained in Roman law.

The Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I (reigned 1122-1190) was the first European ruler to employ the new professional class of lawyers to run the administration of a state. The Digesta provided a framework for a consistent system of administration. It also made of for the loss of legitimacy of the claim of divine right to rule which had been suffered by his predecessors with their controversies with the papacy. The rule of law now became the legitimiser.

Napoleon I established the Napoleonic Code in 1804. It was the first modern legal code to be adopted with a pan-European scope. It strongly influenced the law of many of the countries established during and after the Napoleonic Wars and therefore on continental western European civil law. In was inspired by the Corpus Juris Civilis and used several of its legal definitions. However, it was not a digest of edited texts of existing law. It was a rewriting of law which replaced a patchwork of feudal laws and it was more systematic. It streamlined the law and made it clearer and more accessible. It formed the basis of the private 19th century law systems of Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Portugal Poland and parts of what is now Germany. It has influenced the contemporary civil law systems of Europe except for the British Isles, Russia and Scandinavia. It has been influential in some developing countries, especially in the Middle East,

Answer 3

It spread, first over most of Europe since it had been the law system over all those centuries in all of the Roman Empire. Charlemagne and his successors - who also ruled over most of Europe - kept interest in Roman Law alive, if only because they saw themselves as the successors of Rome's Emperors. So it became and remained the basis of all Europe's law systems.

When the Europeans spread their power all over the Americas in the 15th and 16th centuries, they of course introduced their own law system to replace that of the defeated local rulers. Same thing in the 19th century when colonies were established in large parts of Africa and Asia. The first US colonists all came from Europe and many of their prominent members had studied at European universities - and so also brought European/Roman law along as the basis of US laws.