RECEPTION
reception. The adoption in whole or in part of the law of one jurisdiction by another
jurisdiction. • In the legal idiom, it is most common to speak of the reception of Roman law.
“In many parts of Europe monarchs encouraged a ‘reception’ of Roman law at the expense of
medieval customary systems. On the continent — in France, Holland, and Germany — the results
of the reception of Roman law have tended to be permanent; the continental jurist in the twentieth
century studies Roman law to grasp the jurisprudence underlying modern codes. And in the British
Isles, the law of Scotland now contains so much borrowing from Roman law that there, too the
road to legal practice leads through study of the corpus of Roman civil law compiled at Justinian’s
direction. But a reception of Roman law never occurred in England.” Arthur R. Hogue, Origins of
the Common Law 242 (1966). [Blacks Law 8th]