Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/85

IV] TRANSMISSION OF THE ROMAN LAW 67 the racehood of the parties, to customary law valid for aU within a certain territory. In the eleventh century the last traces of the former system disap- peared. The renewal of the study of the Koman law in the twelfth century was fruitful of results through France. That law could now serve as a model for jurists. In some provinces it was accepted as actual law, written and authoritative. Accordingly, in the south of France, where the people lived under a cus- tomary law derived from Roman law, the Roman law proper now regained validity. In the middle and north of France, where there was less Roman law in the customary law, Roman law was not accepted in bulk or as authoritative in itself; but it influenced the customary law. Thus a line was drawn between the pays de coutumes and the pays de droit ecrit, and this division endured from the thirteenth century to the French Revolution; roughly, it was the same line that separated the pays de langue Woe from the pays de langue d^oil. The law prevailing in England before the Norman conquest was in the main pure Germanic law, which came with the English conquests of Britain. A dis- tinct Scandinavian strain entered with the Danish invasion ; and the Norman law of William the Con- queror may have included Scandinavian elements; but it brought a far more important contribution of Frankish ideas and customs. Possibly some appar- ently English institutions may be related, through the customs of Normandy, with some of the institutions of the last centuries of the Roman government. But the new, direct, and certain influence of Roman law