I knew when at started my series on law and jurisprudence, I would have to take on Roman law at some point. This is foundational stuff in the West. But I thought, why wait? Let’s take our time and do a deep dive into Roman law. I will start with a bit of a summary or lecture and then begin reading from Barry’s Nicholas’ “An Introduction to Roman law” first published in 1962. The traditional approach and to some extent, the author’s, is to see the culmination of Roman law in the writing of the jurists in the second and third centuries AD and in Justinian’s great codification in the 6th century. Roman law, they say, is a system and set of principles that influenced modern law to a considerable degree. But this is just part of the story, which requires that we begin at the beginning, when Roman law was emerging from the customs and traditions of the Roman people, with decisions made, case by case, amid a hodge podge of sources and practices, much like early English law. The emergence of law in any society, including our own, is much more than what the government says it is
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