Over the past few decades, the process of European integration and the debate on a common private law in Europe have made their impact felt on the study of legal history at European universities. Whereas post-Roman legal history had traditionally been studied in terms of national history, now the European perspective dominates the field.

In the past twenty years, several surveys of the history of the civil law tradition have been published. This book adds to their number. In it, the historical development of civilian jurisprudence takes centre-stage. The common law tradition is dealt with in the briefest of ways, the sole purpose of its inclusion being to indicate when and where the English law has taken its own direction. The focus here is on the Mediterranean region for Antiquity and on western Europe for the centuries since. As a result of the origins of this book, the Low Countries receive some additional attention. I have decided to retain these pieces from the original Dutch version of the book because they serve to illustrate more general trends. Moreover, I am sure nobody will be harmed by learning something of the history of these lands. Scandinavia and eastern Europe are not covered.

What sets this book apart from other introductions and surveys is that it puts legal history in a broader context. A great deal of space is devoted to political and cultural history, as much in fact as to the legal developments properly speaking. It is hoped that this will make European legal history more accessible for those readers both in Europe and beyond who lack a sufficient background in general European history, and give legal developments more sense and meaning, by relating them to their context. On the other hand, this might also allow historians and other interested readers to relate legal history to a context they know better.

This book is based on the classes in legal history that I have taught at Tilburg University for almost ten years now. It unmistakably bears the traces of the fact that I have also been teaching cultural history at the Law School of the Catholic University of Leuven since 1998. The influence of my teacher and good friend Dirk van den Auweele is evident throughout.