III 1 helie\e I detect a subtext in Pierre l.egrand's paper; he is oppt)- sed to the notion of a common ci\’il code for the l Airopean Union." 1 lis subtext, 1 think, is that a common code would he a misad\ enture because the law would still \ arv from place to place. rhe law would still \arv from place to place. Still, I helie\e it would he reasonably eas\’ to draft a ci\ il code for the European Union that would pro\ ide a framework for greater uniformitx' (d pri- \ate law.'- fhe lesson of comparative law is that it teaches what has been done, therefore what can he dtuie. M\’ greatest complaint with Pierre Legrand is that he neglects comparative legal histor\’. 1 would like to gi\e a few examples-the merest sketch of each will suffice-to indicate what has been achie\ed on a grand scale by legal transplants. Mv first example will concern one aspect of the reception of Roman law (and of canon law) in Western Europe. Naturallv with the reception and with \er\' different conditions, the Corpus luris Civilis was much modified. Still often enough, those changes were understood so much in the same wav in different countries that it is I. possible to talk and write about ins commuiu\ 'common law,' that part of the law that was general!}' accepted in western Europe. Indeed, a marked feature of the time, especiallv of the i~th centurv, is the appearance (>f editions of, or commentaries on, Justinian's elemen11 See Pierre Legrand, 'Against a European Civil Code,' 6o Modern LawReview pp. 44ff. This is a position that would seem attractive to many French-Canadians as to many Scots (in the past, when the idea would have been of amalgamation with English law). As with Legrand's 'Impossibility,' I find no substance in this article. For further opposition to Legrand's article see also Burkhard Schäfer and Zenon Bankowski, 'Mistaken Identities: The Integrative Force of Private Law,' in Van Hoecke and Ost, Harmonisation, pp. 2iff.; Anthony Chamboredon, 'The Debate on a European Civil Code: For an "Open Texture,'" in Van Hoecke and Ost, Harmonisation, pp. 63ff. 12 Whether such greater uniformity is desirable is another issue. 106
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