giv held belief that throughour the Kiiipire feudal law was one and the same, e\eii it nor identical from one stare to the next. I'lie lesson must be that through transplants law becomes similar, e\en if not identical, in man\' jurisdictions: and that lawmakers rely hea\ ily on foreign law for their own changes, whether as legislators, judges or jurists. But in this section 1 realh' want to call attention to one detail that is enlightening. The Scot, d'homas C>raig, who died in 1608, wrote his his which was first published in I lis aim was to show the fundamental similarirv ol the subject in Scotland and Idigland. \et the book was republished in Leipzig, Saxony, more than a halt-century later (1716). Lhe editor Liider Mencken, describes the work in the title page as Opus in Germania Dtuhim Desideratum, "\ work long longed for in Ciermany." In the preface he insists that the book was longed for because of its usefulness in court. C'ertainlv, what the Saxons wanted was not the hnv peculiar to Scotland. But a Scottish book was x alued for court practice in Saxony and elsewhere in Ciermanv’. \et again, for Scotland, the book could be reprinted in I'^dinburgh in One final detail: on the title page, Mencken states that the book contains "not just the Lombard feudal customs, but those of I'ingland and Scotland." For him, these were also rele\ ant for Saxony, and his wide audience."' feudal law may not ha\e been-and it was not-the same thronghour western Lurope, but it was much more alike because of the l.ihri I'endoriimand the consequent legal transplants. III. A third example concerns the early history of the French eode eivil in Belgium. Belgium was annexed to France in 179"’, and the fVench rwZc r/zvZ automatically came into force on its promulgation 16 My own copy of the Leipzig edition was bought in Scotland, obviously a physical 'transplant' and most likely before 1732. The numbering of sections in the Leipzig edition are different from those of the 1655 edition. 109
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