The Napoleonic code reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Apr-2004 (provided by Fixed Reference: snapshots of Wikipedia from wikipedia.org)

Napoleonic code

The original Napoleonic Code, or Code Napoléon, was the French civil law code, established at the behest of Napoléon and entering into force on March 21, 1804. The Napoleonic code was the first legal code to be established in a country with a civil legal system. It was based on Roman law, and followed Justinian's Corpus Juris Civilis in dividing civil law into:

1. personal status;
2. property;
3. acquisition of property.

Other countries soon copied this idea, and developed their own codes, of which the Swiss and German codes were the most influential. All of the countries of modern Europe with exception of the United Kingdom, Ireland, Russia, and the Scandinavian countries, base their civil law system on the Napoleonic Code. The code has thus been the most permanent inheritance of Napoleon.

The intention behind the Napoleonic Code was to reform the French legal system in accordance with the principles of the French Revolution. Before the Code, France did not have a single set of laws. The vestiges of feudalism were abolished, and the many different legal systems used in different parts of France were replaced by a single legal code.

The Code dealt only with civil law issues; other codes were also published dealing with criminal law and commercial law.

Developing out of the various coutumes of France notably the Coutume de Paris this recodification process that had first started by Justinian in the Byzantine Empire with the establishment of codified Roman law. The development of the Code was a fundamental change in the nature of the civil law legal system. The development of these codes made the law much clearer, they were different in each country, and thus destroyed the superficial legal unity of Continental Europe which had existed in the Middle Ages.

The term "Napoleonic code" is also used to refer to legal codes of other jurisdictions that are derived from the French Code Napoleon, especially the civil codes of Louisiana.

See also: Lettre de cachet

External link

• English translation of the Code

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