The period of the great codifications in the Romano-Germanic law families

With the disappearance of the Western Roman Empire, law also started to decline as at the beginning of the Middle Ages state authority was almost inexistent – there was no longer a sophisticated legislator as the Romans, a hierarchy of executive power or a system of courts of law. It took European states a few centuries to regain the level of civilisation (including judicial civilisation) the Romans had reached during the peak of the Roman Empire. Even though it lacked judicial force, Roman law remained a benchmark for all European legists who interpreted the traditions and new norms from its perspective and it proved its value once again, centuries later, during the period of the great codices. In the European space marked by the middle class revolutions, the modern era was a period of great legislative effervescence. The French Revolution (1789) gave birth to the Declaration of the Human and Citizen’s Rights and then a long line of (French) constitutions have given an impulse to reforming movements throughout Europe (numerous states adopted their own constitutions which were the base for their entire national law system). The French Civil Code (1805), the French Commercial Code (1807) and then the German Civil and Commercial Codes (which became valid in 1900) represented the pillars of continental private law.