The law of obligations is one of the most significant contributions of Roman law to legal culture, illuminating the civil law tradition more than any other branch of Roman law.
Our modern legal framework regarding the law of obligations has been unquestionably shaped by Roman concepts, rules, and institutions. The very idea of obligation and contract, the duality of contract/ delict, the different categories of liability, the balance between formalities and consent, among other things - these have constituted fundamental elements of most of the legal systems in both civil and common law traditions.
The central component of the law of obligations is the contract. Roman jurists did not produce an elaborate and systematic theory of contract, as happened in modern law. Rather, Roman jurists created and developed concrete contracts, usually in a casuistic fashion. For those reasons, the meaning of contract was a matter of continuous evolution, subject to the commercial and economic progress of Roman society. There was not a single, unitary law of contract but a law of (different) contracts. Medieval European lawyers of the ius commune, primarily canon lawyers and late Scholastics, took the first steps toward developing a general theory of contract in the civil law tradition.
More on the topic The law of obligations is one of the most significant contributions of Roman law to legal culture, illuminating the civil law tradition more than any other branch of Roman law.:
- Along with contracts, the other significant branch of the law of obligations is that of delicts, i.e., private wrongs for which redress was provided by civil law.
- Legal scholars use the term ‘civil law systems’ to describe the legal systems of all those nations predominantly within the historical tradition derived from Roman law as transmitted to Continental Europe through the Corpus Iuris Civilis of Emperor Justinian.[834]
- Mousourakis G.. Roman Law and the Origins of the Civil Law Tradition. Springer,2015. — 339 p., 2015
- This Roman Law of Obligations comprises notes of lectures given at the University of Edinburgh in 1982 by Peter Birks, who was then ProÂfessor of Civil Law in the Scottish capital.
- Zimmermann R.. The Law of Obligations. Roman Foundations of the Civilian Tradition. Juta & Co, Ltd,1992. — 1241 p., 1992
- Roman Law Codes and the Roman Legal Tradition
- It is difficult to provide a comprehensive and finite list of the sources of Roman law, since the Roman jurists never defined the term 'source of law' and different sources were emphasized at certain periods in the history of the Roman legal system to reflect their prominence as instruments of legal reform.
- Roman private law developed from the law of procedure, otherwise recognized as the law relating to actions.
- The second branch of the threefold division of all of private law which Gaius employs in his Institutes is that of the law of 'things'.
- The Civil Law Tradition
- Zimmermann R.. Roman law, Contemporary law, European law. Oxford University Press,2004. — 113 p., 2004
- Birks Peter. Roman Law of Obligations. Oxford University Press,2014. — 303 p., 2014
- Differentiation: Where do Obligations Fit in the Roman View of the Law?
- For the benefit of those who wish to delve deeper into the study of Roman law, and as a prelude to all textual criticism and research on Roman legal institutions, attention should be called to the scores of technical aids which facilitate study in the field.
- Roman Law, Canon Law, and the Trust
- V. ROMAN LAW AS LEGAL HISTORY
- ROMAN LAW AND GERMANIC LAW IN THE WEST