legislation of several centuries. Another part consisted of theDigest, a collection of
excerpts from writings of jurists from the period of about 100BCuntil 300AD. The
Institutions, a student textbook, formed the third part.
1.3 Common Law
After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the law of Western Europe to a large
extent returned to customary tribal law, this time to the law of the Germanic tribes
that had taken possession of the area.
Some remnants of Roman law remained in force for former Roman subjects, side by side
with the customary law of the tribes, but these formed only a shadow of the complex legal
system that the Romans had built.
In the High Middle Ages (the eleventh century until the fifteenth century),
several developments took place that had an enduring influence on the development
of law in Europe. One of them was the rediscovery of Roman law, starting from the
eleventh century. The subsequent “reception” of the Roman law turned out to be
very influential on the development of private law on the European continent.
In England, Roman law had much less influence, and that had to do with a
second important development, namely the rise of common law.
1.3.1 Royal Justices
The start of the development of common law as a separate legal system dates back
to 1066AD, when the Norman King William I (the Conqueror) invaded and
conquered England. This initiated a movement towards unification of the English
legal system, which until then mostly consisted of local customary law.
The unification was brought about by means of a system of royal representatives
who traveled through the country to administer the law. These “royal justices”
applied the same law, and this law was to become theCommon Law of England.
Another factor that contributed to the creation of the common law was the thirteenth
century emergence of central courts of justice. The existence of central courts
facilitated uniform application of the law all over the country.
For law to be uniform, it is not only essential that the rules are the same everywhere, but
also that these rules are applied in the same way. The law consists as much of its rules as of
their mode of application.
The fact that England already had a uniform legal system is one of the reasons
that the rediscovery of Roman law, which had a tremendous influence on the
development of continental European law, did not affect English law to a large
extent. As a consequence, the English legal system and the legal systems of the
continent developed more or less independently of each other. One of the most
conspicuous differences that resulted from this separate development is that
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