comparitive law总结.doc

The Roman Legal System 罗马法 书P17-19 lecture1 Definition: Also the Roman law, its influence starts in the West, is the entire Roman legal output of nearly a millennium stretching from Twelve Tables (c.450 B.C) to the Justinian compilations(c.534 A.D). It was as early as the third century B.C, during the Republic, that there appeared a class of men of education and political influence who discussed and wrote about legal problems. What we know as Roman law evolved through the accretion of the opinions they rendered case by case. From Justinian’s times to the present , the term Roman law, generally has meant that Roman law as it appears in the sixth century Corpus Juris Civilis of Justinian. Which is based on the traditional law and the legislation of the city of Rome, and in form comprises legislation of the assemblies, resolves of the senate, enactments if the emperors, edicts of the praetors, writings of the jurisconsults, and the codes of the later emperor. The Corpus Juris Civilis 《民法大全（查士丁尼法典）》 书P19 lecture1 ①time：It appears in the sixth century. The date of the publication is A.D. 533. ②person: Justinian, the Byzantine Emperor in the sixth century A.D. ③contents: The Corpus Juris Civilis included four parts: 1) a textbook for law students (the Institutes ); 2) a collection of juristic works (the Digest); 3) a collection of imperial enactments (the Code) and 4) Justinian’s own enactments (the Novels). ④significance: The Digest was by far the most important in terms of its influence on the civil law tradition, particularly in the areas of personal status, torts, unjust enrichment contracts and remedies. The Digest was a treatise representing the distillation of what was most valuable from the best Roman legal writings from all previous periods. The Digest itself became the principle source of knowledge about what the Roman law of earlier periods had been like. Together, the Digest and the Code were meant to be a complete and authoritative restatement of Roman la