ABSTRACT
The European Union has produced a revival in the study of Roman law, and specifically, in the European ius commune and the civil law tradition. Paradoxically, though Justinian's codification was developed in the East, it was in the West that Roman law flourished again as a result of the recovery of the Digest in the eleventh century. Civil law glossators were the scholars of the eleventh and twelfth centuries who specialized in the study and teaching of Roman law sources and used the explanatory technique of writing glosses in manuscripts of the Corpus Iuris. The commentators were able to transform Justinian's law into a common law for the entire continental Europe. Medieval canon law was a well-balanced combination of ecclesiastical sources and medieval interpretation of Roman law. Roman law also penetrated English law through canon law, which was applied in English law in church courts, especially in relation to marriage and testaments.
