The Civil Law Tradition

Abstract

This is a brief sketch of the Civil Law Tradition. Mainly intended for educational purposes, it reveals the historical background of the Civil Law and its two main variants: the French and the German. Finally, it contains a few notes on the difficulties of comparing the Civil and Common Law and contains the main standard references on the subject. In any case, the main purpose of this paper is to question the relevance of legal origins as expressed by the World Bank and the Law and Finance movement. My theory is that the main differences between the common law and the civil law are due to political modernity rather than romantic remote origins.