Medieval Roman Law

Medieval Roman law is the continuation and development of ancient Roman law that developed in the European Late Middle Ages. Based on the ancient text of Roman law, the Corpus iuris civilis, it added many new concepts, and formed the basis of the later civil law systems that prevail in the vast majority of countries. Some exceptions are, for example, common law countries of the English-speaking world.

Although some legal systems in southern Europe in the Early Middle Ages, such as the Visigothic Code, retained some features of ancient Roman law, the main texts of Roman law were little known until the rediscovery of the Digest in Italy in the late 11th century. It was soon apparent that the Digest was a massive intellectual achievement and that the assimilation of its contents would require much time and study. The first European university, the University of Bologna, was set up in large part with the aim of studying it.

The ancient Roman law texts were not very explicit about matters of principle, and the commentators found it necessary to develop the scholastic method of comparing potentially conflicting texts and inferring principles that would explain the apparent contradictions. The commentators of the 12th and early 13th centuries, called glossators, such as Azo of Bologna and Accursius, produced a large-scale harmonization and commentary on the texts. They developed new concepts by reflecting on different related texts, such as the concept of half-proof in the law of evidence.

Initially the rediscovered Roman law was not the law of any particular country or institution, but as lawyers trained in the concepts of Roman law came to dominate the legal profession, Roman law came to have an immense effect on law as actually practiced. For example, torture was reintroduced into Europe as a means of acquiring evidence, usually when there was half-proof or more against a defendant but not yet sufficient proof for conviction.

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