Western European legal history

LWM50

This course is about the history of legal development in Europe, from the fall of the Roman Empire right up to the modern times. As this is such a large area to cover we have focused mainly on broader themes of legal development, in particular considering the emergence and evolution of various schools of legal thought such as the humanists, the scholastics and the natural law theorists and the influence these schools have had upon the individual legal systems of Europe. Most legal systems are derived from one or other of the great legal systems that developed in Europe from around the 11^th and 12^th centuries. In this course we seek to outline the change in Ius Commune, or European Common law, in different times and places. Throughout the course we will compare and contrast the development of legal systems within individual countries in an effort to explain how each legal systems experience reflected the broader trends of the European legal tradition.

Study as an individual course

Module A: The Foundation: Roman and Canon law 500-1100

LWM50A

The Corpus Juris Civilis and its survival until the eleventh century
Roman law outside the Justinianic tradition: Visigothic and Frankish law
The Canon law in the West: Canon law collections before Gratian
Feudal law and Roman law in Italy
The revival of the study of Roman law

Module B: Interactions of Roman and local law: twelfth-sixteenth centuries

LWM50B

Gratian and the formation of the learned Canon law
The consolidation of Roman law: the Glossators
The expansion of Roman law: the Commentators
Canon law scholarship, practice and influence
Roman law and political thought

Module C: National laws and codification: sixteenth-nineteenth centuries

LWM50C

The renaissance of Roman law: humanism in Rome and France
The droit écrit and droit coutumier in France
Mos italicus and mos gallicus
The reception in Germany
The Dutch elegant school and the Natural Law movement

Module D: Modern perspectives on the Ius Commune

LWM50D

Early Natural law codifications
Codification in France and its empire
German romanticism: Savigny vs Thibault
Pandektenrecht and Mommsen: German codification and scholarly reaction in Roman law
Survival and continuity

Andorra, San Marino and the Channel Islands
Scottish amalgam of feudal and Roman law
South African blend of Common law procedure and Roman law substance

Assessment

Each module will be assessed by a 45-minute unseen written examination.

Sequence

It is strongly recommended that you attempt the modules in order.

How to apply

You can either apply for these modules individually or as part of the Postgraduate Laws programme. (In either scenario, they must be studied in order.)

These modules also contribute towards the following specialist pathways for Laws:

Comparative and Foreign Law
European Law
Legal Theory and History
Public Law

Apply via Postgraduate Laws.

Study Material

Study material: Western European legal history

Professor Andrew Lewis

Professor Andrew Lewis is Emeritus Professor of Comparative Legal History and Principal Research Associate at UCL Laws. Andrew’s main areas of interest are Roman Law, Legal History and Jurisprudence. He is Joint Organiser of the London Legal History Seminar and Area Editor for Roman law for the forthcoming Oxford Encyclopaedia of Legal History. Andrew Lewis is currently working on an extended history of the law of tithes from the eighth to the nineteenth century. He has recently been engaged in the publication of two series of papers, one on The Zong for the Journal of Legal History, now published, and a second on the Pitcairn Island case, Christian v The Queen, under consideration by OUP. He has recently completed an edition (with Dr Iris Cox) of Montesquieu’s Collectio Juris for the Société Montesquieu. An edition of Bentham’s Introduction to the Rationale of Evidence is pending with the Bentham Project.