8 Law and Morality Abroad (to ca. ad 1550)Greece and Rome devised a body of principles known as natural law. Th is
was a body of law that was truly universal in scope and application, without
regard to race, religion, region, or language. Medieval Eu rope became a lega-
tee of this crucial invention, resulting in a vision— if not quite a reality— of a
harmonious system of states living according to something that could fairly
be called a rule of law.
Th e vision of a universal rule of law between states was put to a severe test
in the context of relations between Christian and Muslim states in the Med-
iterranean region beginning in the eleventh century. A further challenge
followed in the age of exploration in the fi ft eenth and sixteenth centuries,
when Eu ro pe an civilization expanded into the Indian Ocean and Far East
and, more spectacularly, into the Western Hemi sphere. It cannot be said
that the vision of a universal natural law proved altogether equal to these
challenges. But remarkably, it cannot be said to have utterly failed them ei-
ther. Th rough all of these vicissitudes, the basic idea of justice and a rule of
law between nations managed to survive. All things considered, it was a re-
markable feat.