GERMANIC ELEMENTS IN THE CODE CIVIL
My second illustration — and paradox — is that French law — and the Code civil of 1804 in particular - were deeply influenced by Germanic and feudal customary law. The Franks and other Germanic peoples who overran Gaul and settled on old Roman land, particularly in the north, brought with them their customÂary law, whose most famous monument is the Salic law (oldest version early sixth century).
Whereas they gave up their tribal gods for Christianity and to a large extent gave up their lanÂguage for vulgar Latin and proto-French, they stuck to their ancient laws. Consequently the northern two-thirds of France lived for centuries, not by the Roman as in ancient Gaul, but by Germanic customary law. It was only in the southern third of the kingdom that the former, in one form or another, surÂvived. These two parts of France, which subsisted right up to the Code civil, are known respectively as pays de droit coutumier and pays de droit ecrit (Roman law being bookish and written). Towards the end of the Middle Ages the monarchy ordered these old local and regional customs to be put in writing and published as law, so that these norms survived the impact of Roman law and deeply marked the Code civil itself. An important factor in this state of affairs was the Custom of Paris (â€?homologated’ in the early sixteenth century) which became the cornerstone of [1] an ideal general French law, and Paris was situated in the northÂern, customary part of France (the frontier between north and south followed a line west to east not far south of the Loire). The authors of the Code civil on the whole managed to establish a reasonable synthesis of the two great traditions in their new lawbook, obligations and contract being based on Roman, and family and property on Germanic and feudal customary law. But they could not always avoid heated arguments, as appeared when the articles on the estate of married people were discussed: the north was attached to the Germanic community of goods and the south to the Roman dotal system (marriage settlement in trust for the married woman): fiery patriotic southerners deÂcried the community of goods as barbaric and stemming from the primeval Germanic forests. The Code eventually adopted the northern custom of the joint estate of husband and wife (adminÂistered by the husband) as the norm, but allowed the southerners to choose the Roman system if they so wished.2
More on the topic GERMANIC ELEMENTS IN THE CODE CIVIL:
- GERMANIC ELEMENTS IN THE CODE CIVIL
- Caenegem R.C. van.. European Law in The Past and The Future: Unity and Diversity over Two Millennia. Cambridge University Press,2004. — 185 p., 2004
- Contents
- Geographic Distribution of the Civil Law
- THE CODE CIVIL AND THE SCHOOL OF EXEGESIS
- BELGIUM AND THE NETHERLANDS
- THE GERMAN HISTORICAL SCHOOL
- From the sixteenth century to the introduction of the first European civil codes
- COMMON LAW AND RECEPTION
- POTHIER AND THE FRENCH CIVIL CODE