THE NETHERLANDS

In the Netherlands, Roman law was already in use by thirteenth century, but localised customary law predominated. Encouraged by the lack of a unified legal system, though, ius commune influence became more pronounced in the late fifteenth century.

Through this process, the Netherlands developed a national legal system, based on Roman law but taking into account domestic customary law. In the seventeenth century, the term “Roman-Dutch law” was coined by Simon de Leeuwen for this development. The most important product of Roman-Dutch legal thinking, though, was the work of Hugo de Groot (1583—1645), better known as Grotius. Grotius made use of natural law ideas, conceived by Aquinas in the thirteenth century drawing on the work of Aristotle, and further developed by later writers. He was an important figure in the development of international law, but he also contributed to domestic law in his Introduction to the Jurisprudence of Holland, an introduc­tory work following the order ofJustinian’s Institutes. This book was written while Grotius was imprisoned, but was published later, in 1631.

Roman-Dutch law was codified in the Dutch Civil Code (Burgerlijk Wetboek) in 1830 and so, as with other codified systems, resort is no longer had in practice to the Roman sources. However, uncodified Roman-Dutch law continues to be the basis of the law in former Dutch colonies, such as South Africa.