england-and-wales common-law legal-history france civil-legal-system
What was the scope of the Norman influence upon the English legal system?
<p>Which aspects of the English legal system are characterized by clear influences from France?</p>
<p>How is this reconciled with the different (civil/common law) paradigms?</p>
<p>For example, the justices of the peace act 1361 was literally passed in French! How was the Norman conquest able to  exert such immense influence on the legislative system, yet the common law paradigm managed to be preserved?</p>

<h2>The common law is an Anglo-Norman hybrid, not an Anglo-French one</h2>
<p>At the time of the Conquest, neither France nor England had a consistent or uniform legal system. Instead, both had regional patchworks of law administered by local lords, sheriffs, and tradition.</p>
<p>The Conquest was in 1066. The earliest recognizable common law concepts are  about 200 years later. Civil law is even more recent - it dates from the <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleonic_Code" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Code Napoleon</a> in 1804 although, obviously, this did not emerge from a vacuum with roots in Roman law.</p>
