Roman law has had a huge impact on European legal and political thought. Peter Stein, one of the world's leading legal historians, explains in this masterly short study how this came to be. He assesses the impact of Roman law in the ancient world, and its continued unifying influence throughout medieval and modern Europe. Roman Law in European History is unparalleled in depth, lucidity and authority, and should prove of enormous utility for teachers and students (at all levels) of legal history, comparative law and European Studies.

Goethe is said to have likened the Roman civil law to a duck: sometimes it is visible, swimming prominently on the surface of the water, at other times it is hidden, diving amid the depths. but it is always there. This may be said to be true not only in continental Europe and Scotland, where Roman law has been a dominant influence, but also in England and the U.S.A., where Roman law has often informed and supplemented Common law. None of the great writers on Common law, with the exception perhaps of Coke, failed to take Roman law in to consideration, especially on the matters of legal theory....