---
title: "Legal history"
chunk: 2/3
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_history"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:59:51.266004+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

One of the major legal systems developed during the Middle Ages was Islamic law and jurisprudence. Some important legal institutions were developed by Islamic jurists during the classical period of Islamic law and jurisprudence. One such institution was the Hawala, an early informal value transfer system mentioned in texts of Islamic jurisprudence as early as the 8th century. Hawala itself later influenced the development of the Aval in French civil law and the Avallo in Italian law.

== European laws ==

=== Roman Empire ===

Roman law was heavily influenced by Greek teachings. It forms the bridge to the modern legal world, over the centuries between the rise and decline of the Roman Empire. Roman law, in the days of the Roman Republic and Empire, was heavily procedural, and there was no professional legal class. Instead a lay person, iudex, was chosen to adjudicate. Precedents were not reported, so any case law that developed was disguised and almost unrecognised. Each case was to be decided afresh from the laws of the state, which mirrors the (theoretical) unimportance of judges' decisions for future cases in civil law systems today. During the 6th century AD in the Eastern Roman Empire, the Emperor Justinian codified and consolidated the laws that had existed in Rome so that what remained was one twentieth of the mass of legal texts from before. This became known as the Corpus Juris Civilis. As one legal historian wrote, "Justinian consciously looked back to the golden age of Roman law and aimed to restore it to the peak it had reached three centuries before."

=== Middle Ages ===

During the Byzantine Empire, the Justinian Code was expanded and remained in force until the Empire fell, though it was never officially introduced to the West. Instead, following the fall of the Western Empire and in former Roman countries, the ruling classes relied on the Theodosian Code to govern natives and Germanic customary law for the Germanic incomers – a system known as folk-right – until the two laws blended. Since the Roman court system had broken down, legal disputes were adjudicated according to Germanic custom by assemblies of learned lawspeakers in rigid ceremonies and in oral proceedings that relied heavily on testimony.
After much of the West was consolidated under Charlemagne, law became centralized to strengthen the royal court system and, consequently, case law, and folk-right was abolished. However, once Charlemagne's kingdom definitively splintered, Europe became feudalistic, and law was generally not governed above the county, municipal, or lordship level, thereby creating a highly decentralized legal culture that favored the development of customary law founded on localized case law. However, in the 11th century, crusaders, having pillaged the Byzantine Empire, returned with Byzantine legal texts including the Justinian Code, and scholars at the University of Bologna were the first to use them to interpret their own customary laws. Medieval European legal scholars began researching the Roman law and using its concepts and prepared the way for the partial resurrection of Roman law as the modern civil law in a large part of the world. There was, however, a great deal of resistance so that civil law rivaled customary law for much of the late Middle Ages.
After the Norman conquest of England, which introduced Norman legal concepts into medieval England, the English King's powerful judges developed a body of precedent that became the common law. In particular, Henry II instituted legal reforms and developed a system of royal courts administered by a small number of judges who lived in Westminster and traveled throughout the kingdom. Henry II also instituted the Assize of Clarendon in 1166, which allowed for jury trials and reduced the number of trials by combat. Louis IX of France also undertook major legal reforms and, inspired by ecclesiastical court procedure, extended Canon-law evidence and inquisitorial-trial systems to the royal courts. In 1280 and 1295, measures were instituted by the Court of Arches and other authorities in London to improve the conduct of lawyers in the courts. Also, judges no longer moved on circuits, becoming fixed to their jurisdictions, and jurors were nominated by parties to the legal dispute rather than by the sheriff. In addition, by the 10th century, the Law Merchant, first founded on Scandinavian trade customs, then solidified by the Hanseatic League, took shape so that merchants could trade using familiar standards, rather than the many splintered types of local law. A precursor to modern commercial law, the Law Merchant emphasised the freedom of contract and alienability of property.

=== Modern European law ===

The two main traditions of modern European law are the codified legal systems of most of continental Europe, and the English tradition based on case law.
As nationalism grew in the 18th and 19th centuries, lex mercatoria was incorporated into national law through new civil codes. Of these, the French Napoleonic Code and the German Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch became the most influential. As opposed to English common law, which consists of massive tomes of case law, codes in small books are easy to export and for judges to apply. However, today there are signs that civil and common law are converging. European Union law is codified in treaties, but develops through the precedent set down by the European Court of Justice.

== African law ==