Foundations of Legal Systems: Roman Law Influence

The Nature of Normative Power

The lawyer Baldo expressed the natural character of the normative power of infra-imperial political bodies: "People are the law of nations (natural law), and their government is rooted in the law of nations, as the government cannot exist without laws or statutes (particular laws). The fact that there is a people has meant that a government exists, in much the same way that the animal is governed by its own spirit and soul."

Reconciling Legal Orders

The validity of the common law must be reconciled with the legal orders of all real, municipal, corporate, or family entities. This support can be achieved by considering that, in their particular domain of application, inherent rights take precedence over common law, leaving it as a subsidiary claim. However, common law also serves as a model law based on the general and permanent values of human reason. For this reason, it possesses an expansive force that makes it applicable in all situations not covered by individual rights, and simultaneously serves as a criterion for judging the reasonableness of the remedies provided by those rights.

Roman Law Integration in Europe

From the thirteenth century, first in Italy, Roman law began to be integrated into the sources of law in most European kingdoms, even those that did not recognize the supremacy of the emperor.

Roman law was not remarkable for its abstract nature, nor did it guarantee legal communication between large commercial centers in Europe.

Seeking Causal Explanations

One may need to look for causes elsewhere:

• On the one hand, the aforementioned restoration of the Western Empire in the ninth century generated the idea that political and even religious empire required a legal unit built on the law of empire par excellence: the Roman Empire.
• Furthermore, although the authority of Roman law was not derived from the continued imposition of the emperor, it was superior due to the perfection attributed to it.

Importance of Roman Law

The sources of Roman law were far more elaborate and sophisticated than the early medieval Germanic rights or the local rights, as its fine and rich casuistry covered the most general situations.

Roman law had been the subject of doctrinal development.

Its solutions were "explained" and "justified" by lawyers. These lawyers, on the other hand, had developed a series of general arguments, such as the ratio of law, equity, or utility, which served as orientation lines for legal knowledge and gave coherence to solutions that were otherwise haphazard or new.

Roman law responded to broader issues in a reasonable and convincing manner, demonstrating a high degree of perfection and rationality.