Introduction

A word of clarification at the outset about this term “private law,” which may be unfamiliar to some readers. Law students discover early in their legal education that their basic courses can be divided into “public” and “private” law. There is a longstanding historical and conceptual tradition that denotes some topics as “private law”—namely property, contracts, business associations, and torts. One way of approaching what constitutes private law and how it is distinct from public law is found at the outset of an influential account of the sociology of law, Max Weber’s Economy and Society. James Gordley, working from within the Thomistic and Catholic tradition, points out that what author term “private law” has its sources in Roman law, and he explores the ways in which medieval jurists and canonists adapted those Roman sources in Christianity.