Roman Law and European Culture

It seems correct to speak about Roman law as one of the most important formants of the European culture as a whole. But this view of the relationship between Roman law and European culture is incomplete. European legal culture is constituted by a multitude of cultural formants. It is the way how these elements where mixed and mingled that constitutes the European culture. Then to what extent did Roman law contribute to the formation or acceptance of these axioms? What part has Rome been playing? If we compare Roman law which developed in antiquity (that means between the 1st century before and the 3rd century after Christ) and the Roman law which was studied and used from the 11th century onwards we can detect important differences. However, before we separate Roman law and later influences we must uncover antique Roman law; we must get to know how Roman law was like in antique reality. We should try to unveil influences on Roman law which took place since late antiquity, particularly since the Middle Ages. For this purpose, I selected three examples; one example stems from the law of obligations, one from the law of property, one from the law of succession. In all three examples Roman law provides the shell for the modern solutions. But their contents differ widely or even totally from what Roman lawgivers and jurists designed. In many instances new law was formed out of the Roman sources, they produced an usus modernus iuris romani, as we could call it. This new law is indebted to Greek philosophy, to moral theology, to the Natural Lawyers or to other philosophic, sociologic or economic ideas of later times. This is why it is difficult to measure how Roman law formed or transformed European culture. Many of the Roman concepts and some of the Roman institutes underwent a profound change due to other cultural influences, mostly of philosophical or theological origin. Though we use the same arguments as the Romans, we draw them from different valuations. What does this mean for our discussion of Roman law and European culture? The consequences are twofold; first, we have to be aware of the differences. Secondly, we have to explain how Roman law mingled with other cultural formants. Only then it is possible to consider which cultural elements contributed to the formation of Europe and to measure the mutual influences.