ABSTRACT
O N A U G U S T 1 2 , Napoleon Bonaparte as First Consul promulgated a decree appointing a Code Commission of four and instructed them to have the Code ready by the ensuing November. After a carefully designed process of revisions, the Code Civil was promulgated on March 21, 1804. Again in August, on August 18, 1896, the German Emperor ratifi ed the German Civil Code, which took effect on January 1, 1900. Between these dates, there was a century of civil codifi cation, well known to the historians of law yet less well known to students of law and economics. In fact, the great codifi cations were inspired by far sighted rulers and legal scholars already before the French revolution. The Code Fredéric or Prussian Gesetzbuch of 1751, later became the Landrecht of 1794 and, although not purporting to be complete, was actually favoured by Savigny over the Code Civil. A table gives the chronology of codifi cation relevant to the German civil law.1
