Course Catalogue

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This course is designed to give students an overview of the history and methodology of Civil law in Europe. Civil law, or ius civile, the law of citizens of ancient Rome, provided a highly complex and sophisticated approach to solving legal problems. By tracking this approach from Rome to the later reception of Roman law, through an examination of the sustained treatment by jurists and courts of texts relating to similar legal issues, the course will offer students an opportunity to reflect on the ingenuity, use, application, uniqueness and limitations of the Civilian approach. Both historical and legal perspectives will be applied to centuries' of renewed interaction with principles and texts from classical Roman jurists, to the compilation of the Digest under Justinian, the loss and rediscovery of Roman law in Europe, the widespread reception in Europe of Roman law under the ius commune, the scientific approach to Roman law espoused by the German Historical School, modern codification efforts in Europe, and Civil law tradition in contemporary Scots and English law.  

2 lectures per Week for 10 Weeks (20 lectures total), 60 minutes duration with a reading week. 3 Tutorials (60 mins duration).

This course is only available to LLB students.

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The summative assessment will be 80% by way of a two-hour final examination. Students will be able to take an unannotated copy of the course reading material booklet into the hall. A summative-formative assessment worth 20% will be conducted in Week 6, with information set out in the course handbook.

This course aims: 

■ to introduce students to the Civil law tradition, its history, practice, and methodology. 

■ to provide students with an understanding of historical interaction with Civil law in Europe and contemporary Scots and English law. 

■ to introduce students to primary sources in the Civil law tradition. 

■ to develop students' skills in understanding and interpreting these sources. 

■ to develop students' skills in understanding the historical, social, and economic context of sources, and to apply a critical lens to historical source work. 

■ to introduce students to scholarly debates and viewpoints on the reception of the Civil law in medieval and modern Europe.  

■ to develop students' skills in the critical assessment of these debates and viewpoints and in their analysis of the legal sources that inform these debates and viewpoints. 

By the end of this course, students will be able to:

■ to demonstrate an understanding of the historical and cultural development of legal ideas in Civil law.  

■ to demonstrate an understanding of core Civil law texts and the methodology applied at various historical points to their creation and application.  

■ to apply the legal principles found in civilian legal texts to legal scenarios and to evaluate the effectiveness of their application. 

■ to critically evaluate key narratives, scholarly debates and themes in the development of Civil law texts.