Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/84

 66 THE CLASSICAL HERITAGE [chap. The fresh and springing life of the Lombard cities at the beginning of the twelfth century stimulated the more thorough and scientific study of Eoman law which a better stage of intelligence rendered possible, and which, in fact, had begun at Bologna under Irnerius and others of the Bologna school. There resulted a practical re-discovery and revival of Jus- tinian's Digest, that great collection of jurispruden- tial law which had been beyond the needs and the comprehension of the preceding centuries. And it was from Bologna that currents of the new and larger knowledge of Roman law went forth through France, England, and Germany. In France in the course of the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries the old Germanic principle of the personality of the law, that is, of law as applicable to persons according to their race, had given way to the principle of territoriality, that is, of law as valid within a certain country. The application of the principle of personality had become impracticable ; it would have been necessary to determine the race of the defendant, and then to know the text of the lex or capitulary applying to him and to the case. But the races were mingling, and an increasing illiteracy made it difficult to understand the written law. The principle of personality had to be abandoned, and often the text of the lex was ignored. In each prov- ince a customary law applying to all inhabitants was forming, its rules being usually drawn from the older lex applicable to the race there dominant ; but that older lex was no longer actually applied. The full change therefore was from lex applied according to