It is a course with a broad sweep. It begins with Roman law and ends with the great codifications of the nineteenth century in Europe: The Code Napoléon and the Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch of the European civil law. The purpose of the course is to introduce you to the four great legal traditions of the Western European tradition: Roman law, the Ius commune, English Common Law, and the Civil law tradition. The course will compare these legal systems by examining four themes: 1. Public law, legislation, and codification, 2. Systems of procedure, 3. Development of jurisprudence, 4. Role of the jurist in society. The course also will examine the origins of English Common Law and compare it to civil (continental) law. At the end of the semester we will compare the present day Common Law legal system to the Civil Law system and reflect on the historical reasons for the similarities and the differences.

The legal system that will occupy most of the course will be the Ius commune (Common Law). Unlike our Common Law, the Ius commune was a pan-European legal system that held sway over Europe from the twelfth to the eighteenth century. It was the only law taught at European universities until the seventeenth century. Most of the legal principles, concepts, and all the Latin tags that we use today come from the Ius commune. If you studied law before ca. 1800 at a university, you studied canon law, Roman law, and feudal law, the constituent parts of the Ius commune. When you graduated, you earned a degree of Doctor of both laws (Doctor utriusque iuris).

For those of you who are interested in adding legal history to your studies, you will have the opportunity to study law in Sicily. Second year students and third year students who take Foundations of Modern Law, or the History of Canon Law (taught in the Fall semester), or who do independent studies in the history of English or American law, will be eligible to win a fellowship to study for 10 days at the International School of the Ius commune in Erice, Sicily in October of 2002. These fellowships pay for transportation, room, and board in Erice and offer the possibility to meet law students from other European countries. Erice is located in the NW corner of Sicily next to the Mediterranean and is one of the most beautiful spots on earth (see http://faculty.cua.edu/pennington/erice.htm).

This semester Law 508, The Comparative Foundations of Modern Law, will meet MW at 1:10-2:25 P.M. The course will require two essays.