(1) In the heyday of Rome, the Roman rulers expanded their territory by force and forcibly applied Roman law. The residents in the conquered areas voluntarily adopted Roman law because of its development and perfection, making Roman law "the first worldwide law in the society of commodity producers".
(2) After the Germanic invasion of Rome, the Germanic law adopted the principle of individualism, which preserved the Roman law. The code compiled by Germanic countries was influenced by Roman law. In the 9th century, with the development of feudal system, the personal theory of law no longer applies, and Roman law and Germanic law merged.
(3) After12 century, the revival of Roman law rose, and the study of Roman law was combined with the actual needs of society and became the authoritative supplementary law of continental countries in Western Europe. After reform and development, Roman law has become the common law in Europe, with common characteristics and legal traditions, thus laying the foundation of the civil law system.
(4) After the victory of the bourgeois revolution, many western European countries established and consolidated the capitalist system, and the legal systems of these countries further developed with the development of capitalist economy, politics and culture and the exchanges between countries. First of all, in France, under the impetus of bourgeois revolution, under the guidance of classical natural law and rationalism, and under the direct influence of Roman law, a model of formulating a complete statutory law system was created. The Code of France has become a model for European countries to establish their own legal systems, marking the establishment of a modern continental law system model. Subsequently, Germany enacted a series of codes on the basis of inheriting Roman law and absorbing French legislative experience. The German Code has become a typical representative of the era when capitalism developed from a free economy to a monopoly economy.
(5) Because the civil law represented by France and Germany has adapted to the needs of the whole capitalist society, and because it is easy to spread in the form of strict written law, the civil law system has spread across Europe and all over the world since the19th century and the 20th century.
Since the Japanese jurist Sui put forward the term "legal system" in the 20th century, the debate on this issue has never stopped. As Southell-Hall said, it is divided into Indo-European legal system, Semite legal system and Mongolian legal system, and uncivilized national legal system; Or as advocated by arman Rong, Nold and Warhol, there are seven legal systems in the world: French legal system, Germanic legal system, Scandinavian legal system, English legal system, Russian legal system, Islamic legal system and Indian legal system.
This problem seems to be getting more and more complicated, but as the saying goes, the truth is getting clearer and clearer. At least on one point, Chinese and western scholars have achieved general agreement. That is to say, the European continent, Latin America and some Asian countries, mainly France and Germany, have all been brought into the civil law system.