ABSTRACT
The history of how the civil law of Rome, having served the needs of a great empire in the ancient world, was revived in the university law faculties of mediaeval Europe to form the basis of the codified legal orders of the vast majority of nations in modern Europe and of many farther afield, is truly one of the most, if not the most, remarkable stories in the legal history of the world. The analytical clarity of the Roman institutional scheme permits of its application to bodies of law which are outside the family of civil law systems. The experience of 'mixed' civil and common law systems in Scotland and South Africa encourages the belief that such an assimilation is a practical possibility. The learning and methodology of the civil law has much to offer therefore in a world which is becoming more inter-institutional than international in terms of its social composition.
