inch flic 24rli Dcccinhcr, a.d. . . .Likewise ir should he considered in rhe case ot tlie l.ihri Icudorum that, plausiliK, the\' recei\ed rheir authorir\' nor from (lerardiis nor from Olrertus [the reputed aurhors] hut troin imperial constitutions. One miglit reasonahlv helicne that wlien these were founded on and produced in the Lombard courts, Cierardus and Ohertus set down in brief notes the e.xtent of their use and oh.ser\ance. 'I'hus, ho conriiuies, rho l.ihri Vvudorumwas a product of imperial starute, a select digest of laws of such emperors as Lothair, C'onrad, and I'Vederick. Wrong. But the reason for the authority of the l.ihri I'ciidorumis being established. In this connection I would like to mention the different, hut not too dissimilar case of'the Lotharian legend. 'I'his myth was ad\ anced by Phillip .Melancthon to explain the reception of Justinian's Corpus luris Ch'dis in (jermain-. According to this, the Corpus luris was expressly receixed b\’ the lAnperor Lothar in But in the absence of anything else, the law itself niav come to be so highly regarded that it is its own best authority. A splendid exampie is the I Vench code civil of 1804 that, though much modified, is recognizabU' the same today. There haxe been two major attempts to replace it. .\t the beginning of the last centurx’ a committee was appointed to prepare a full re\ ision: it failed e\ en to produce a draft. After World War 11, in iy4>' a committee of tweUe was gix en the task of preparing a new code civil. It produced a number of drafts, but no new code.' Again, the high regard of the Idiglish for the excellence of their common law is so well-known that I will gi\e only one example, from William Blackstone's first section on the study of law: 16 According to Franz Wieacker, the myth was needed because the authority of Roman law was waning; Private Law, p. 107. 17 See, e.g., Roger Houin, 'Reform of the French Civil Code and the Code of Commerce,' 4 American journal of Comparative Law (1955) pp. ASsff.; Leon Julliot de la Morandiére, 'The Reform of the French Civil Code,' 97 University of Pennsylvania LawReview pp. iff. 95
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