Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/87

 IV] TRANSmSSION OF THE ROMAN LAW 69 umphs over its kindred and for the time over Koman law as well. This was the Frankish law, the Lex Salica as supplemented by the Capitularies of the Frankish monarchs.* But in Germany the Roman law was to reassert itself with power, and that, too, the Roman law as known and reestablished in its higher forms by the labors of the Bologna school. A portion of this knowledge may have reached Germany in the twelfth century from the law schools of Italy. But the practical " reception " of the Roman law, that is, its application in the courts, begins with the fifteenth century. Clearly the appropriation of Roman law in Ger- many, England, and France, under the inspiration of Bologna, was essentially different from the survival of Roman law in Italy and the early Germanic kingdoms. Through the sixth and immediately following centu- ries, the Roman law, modified, barbarized, dispersed in scattered influences upon Germanic codes, belittled and debased by unreasoning abstracts and epitomes, was understood and applied as a decadent and semi- barbaric period would naturally understand and apply it. The centuries went on. The races of Western Europe grew in all the elements of humanity. They became capable of a better understanding of the Roman law, while the exigencies of an increasing 1 See Sohm, "Frftnklaches Recht and Romischea Recht." ZeU- tchtift/Ur R. gesch. Savigny-Sti/t., Bd. I (1880), pp. l-M. Or, perhaps, one should say that it was the Frankish Lex Ribuariaf reco^izing, however, that the latter was derived from the Lex Salica. Bninner, op. cit., % 33 (Bd. I, pp. 257-258) ; Schroder, op. cit., 62, and ib., " Die Franken und ihr Recht," ZHtachrift /Hr R. gesoh, Savigny-Stift., Bd. II (1881). Ct^rm. AbtheUung, pp. 1-82.