The ius commune in its historical significance is generally regarded as a combination of canon law and Roman law, which has formed the basis of common legal thought in Western Europe since the rediscovery and reception of the Digest of Justinian in the 12th and 13th centuries. In addition to this definition, the term may also have had a narrower meaning, depending on the context in which it was used. Some scholars believe that when the term was used in connection with the ecclesiastical courts of England in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, it also meant “the law common to the universal Church, as opposed to the constitutions or customs or special privileges of a provincial church.” [2] . This is how the Common Juice was born. In practice, it varied from place to place, but it was always a unity maintained by a common tradition and a common stock of learning. Although the law of the Corpus Juris Civilis (especially its main part, the digest – the. However, if we broaden our definitions of ius commune, common law and influence, it becomes less possible to speak of a small influence of ius commune on the common law. The parallels are there, and they are too striking and there are too many to have appeared by chance. In the realm of basic principles, ideas of order, techniques of argumentation, and habits of thought, the parallels are so great that one would simply describe the common law as a variant, albeit eccentric, of the multitude of legal systems that eventually emerge from ius commune. These similarities are so great that we must begin by pointing out three facts about the history of ius commune in England, which generally require us to discuss possible rather than specific influences. I would like to begin by commenting on the status of our question. The best summary for our remarks is John Barton`s novel, Law in England.

I will try to summarize recent research as we move forward. Barton limits himself to Roman law (defined relatively narrowly), the period before 1500, and the influence of Roman law on English law in the narrow sense (which he broadly defines). I will try to include more material on canon law and later periods. We will then try to describe what happens when we define influence a little more broadly. Finally, we will speak of the reciprocal influences, influences of the common law on the English institutions of ius commune and especially on the ecclesiastical courts. The ius commune was an effective part of the law in most areas, although in any jurisdiction local laws (statutes and customs) could take precedence over ius commune. This was true until the codification movement of the late 18th and 19th centuries, which explicitly abolished the direct applicability of Roman and canon law in most countries, although disputes continued over whether ius commune was completely forbidden or survived where national codes were silent. and canon law, known as jus commune, prevails in the absence of local law.

Moreover, Roman ideas were influential, both because they were part of the equipment of all university-educated jurists and because they were part of the ius commune. At the end of the. In a narrow sense, English common law is the body of law applied in a given set of courts when no local custom is affirmed and proven (and it turns out that it is difficult to affirm and prove local customs). The special group of courts are the central royal courts of common law: the common bench (bancum commune, later called common pleas), the court before the king (bancum coram rege, later called the king`s bench) and a little later the chessboard of pleas (placita in scaccario). In the seventeenth century, these courts had concurrent jurisdiction over the most important claims to property and obligations, and the judges of these courts, in slightly different roles, had virtually exclusive jurisdiction over the most serious crimes. If we abandon the institutional element of the definition and define the common law simply as the custom of all England, that body of law applied throughout England when there are no local customs, then our spectrum becomes considerably broader. We will certainly include equity, a body of principles and later rules applied in the court of the clerk, perhaps also the general law applied in the ecclesiastical courts, perhaps also the law applied in the courts derived from the Royal Council, and finally this law applied in some local courts. if there are no more specific local customs. The broader definition is important because it gives us our institutional intersection with ius commune. Ecclesiastical tribunals apply canon law at all times, and therefore ius communal in the broad sense.

The Chancellor`s Court, the conciliar courts and some local courts sometimes show a considerable influence of the ius commun. Jus commune or ius commune is the Latin word for “common law” in some jurisdictions. It is often used by civil law lawyers to refer to those aspects of immutable legal principles of the civil law system that are sometimes referred to in English law as “the law of the land”. While ius commune was a safe point of reference in continental European legal systems, in England it was not a point of reference at all. [1] (Ius commune differs from the term “common law,” which refers to the Anglo-American legal family as opposed to the civil law family.) The term “the common law of civil law systems” refers to the underlying statutes that create a distinct legal system and are common to all its elements. Ius commune, which means “customary law” in Latin, means general law in the broadest sense. In the narrow sense, in continental Europe it was and remains mainly Roman law, i.e. the law established in the Corpus iuris civilis (the legal compilation commissioned by Emperor Justinian in the 6th century).

The ius commune also contained sources of law that were generally considered authentic (in the Holy Roman Empire. Second, ius commune has never been a formal source of law in the central royal common law courts in England. This statement is not as significant as it seems, for the English doctrine of sources of law was not well developed until the nineteenth century, but at no time did the English common law courts adhere to the doctrine found at least in some parts of the continent: that in the absence of local law the courts would turn to ius commune, obtain a binding declaration of the law. Definitions are important. If ius commune, “common law” and “influence” are narrowly defined, then the influence of ius commune on common law was indeed small. The first reformulations of the common law in America in the first half of this century, to take only one of the many places where the common law could be found in its later stages of development, show much less the influence of ius commune in the strict sense than the great European codifications of the nineteenth century. Even in areas where there are notable parallels, direct borrowing is unlikely. Third, except in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, English contributions to ius commune literature are relatively small.

This statement applies in particular to the late Middle Ages.