The papers collected in this volume were originally delivered on 12-13 December 2008 at a conference organised in Old College by the Centre for Legal History of the University of Edinburgh and the Edinburgh Roman Law Group. It is worth remembering that the Edinburgh Roman Law Group was established by the late Professor Peter Birks – sometime Professor of Civil Law in the University of Edinburgh – as an interdisciplinary forum dedicated to the study of Civil law and the Civilian tradition in its broadest sense. Its regular meetings attract a wide audience of students, specialists, and members of the public interested in its aims. Usually meeting three times each academic year, it is addressed by distinguished scholars in the field.

The conference out of which this volume has grown was entitled “From Casus to Regula: The Creation of the Ius Commune”. All the papers delivered are included here in a revised form. The conference allowed fruitful discussion between the speakers and between the speakers and the audience, and this discussion is reflected in the versions of the papers presented as chapters here.

The theme of the conference was chosen because there is little detailed work published in English on the development of the historical ius commune beyond grand narratives of considerable generality. If there are valuable individual studies and even monographs in English, the conference and consequent volume allowed a more general detailed assessment, and an assessment that involved proper consideration not only of the interpretation of the Roman-law texts, but also of those of canon law and feudal law, ranging over a wide area of legal practice and scholarship in the Middle Ages.