Changes

The sources of our knowledge of Roman law in the ancient world include statutes, deeds and the written content left by legal scholars. Among these the Institutes of Gaius, an unfinished manuscript of lections, dated from the 2nd century AC, must be mentioned. Gaius invented a system of private law based on the division of all material into personae (persons), res (things) and actiones (legal actions). This system was used for many centuries that followed after. However, the most important source of information is the Corpus Juris Civilis, ordered by the emperor Justinian I. The emperor formed a commission of jurists to compile all existing Roman laws till date into one unified body.  Subsequently, by blending the old outdated laws with the new laws of the Roman empire, emperor Justinian I effectively cleansed and updated the Roman law thus selecting only those rules that had real practical value of the time leaving behind all obsolete principles and postulates. The first book of the so-called Corpus Juris Civilis is the Codex Constitutionum. It represents a selection of the imperial constitutions that had some practical value or their provisions were adapted to the circumstances of Justinian’s own time. The second book or a set of book volumes consists of 50 more book volumes that became known as Digest (Digesta) or Pandects (Pandectae). They contained a selection of the writings of the jurists and were pronounced to be a law book and no other jurist’s writings could be cited any more. At about the same time the Institutes of Justinian was published. It contained an outline of the elements of the Roman law. The last book is known as the New constitutions or the Novels and consists of ordinances issued by the emperor himself.

This Corpus Juris of Justinian continued to be the main law book of what was left of the Roman imperial world long after Justinian’s ruling. His system of law continued to develop even further in the Eastern Empire until the very fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 15th century. However, the real resurrection of Roman law occurred in the West. Corpus Juris Civilis was rediscovered in Bologna, Italy, at the end of 11th century and became the reason for the establishment of Europe’s first university and the first law faculty. From there Roman law spread across all Catholic Europe with England being an important exception. By the 16th century Roman law was in force throughout most of Europe. However, in the process of adoption, many Roman rules were mixed up or changed in way to better suit the legal norms and specifics of the various European nations. In general the rules that were applied by the European countries at that period were identical to the Roman law from Justinian’s time. Nonetheless, the law that has evolved was common to the most European countries and so it was called Ius Commune (common law) <ref>N.B.! to be distinguished from the Common law system, based on precedent</ref>. In this form Roman law was in force in many countries until national codes were later created in 18th and 19th centuries. For example - in Germany Roman law remained the primary legal source until 1900 when the German Civil Code was first introduced.

Moreover, Roman law is the common foundation upon which the European legal order is built. Therefore, it serves as a source of rules and legal norms which easily blend within the European countries own national laws. Roman law is not only effectively mixed in the widely used common law and continental law norms and practices, but its set of fundamental principles and/or established rules pre-defines, shapes and provides law sources in accordance to which states are governed in general. Nowadays, these rules altogether make up, i.e. constitute, what the entity is all about and what is also commonly referred to as Nations’ Constitutions <ref>i.e. Nation Main Law(s)</ref>.