Personal Law Period

After the German tribes overthrew the Roman Empire and settled in the formerly Roman territories,there arose what is called the system of personal laws.It is generally accepted that this system of personal laws lasted from the 6th century to the 10th century.6 During this period,there ceased to be a territorial law applicable to all persons living within a certain defined space.Instead,each tribe retained its own tribal law,and wherever a person went,he carried the law of this tribe with him,thus the Visigoth would live under Visigothic law,the Saxon under Saxon law,and so on.7 In places with a mixed population,such as Italy,it was the custom to designate in contractual instruments the law under which the contracting parties lived.In judicial proceedings,too,the judge might ask the plaintiff or the defendant “qua lege vivis” (according to what law are you living)? Sometimes the parties seem to have been at liberty to state,not the law under which they lived,but the law under which they wished to live.This is the first deviation from the principle of the personal lex originis,the first example of a choice of law by the contracting parties.8 Therefore,some scholars conclude that “the strides toward a choice of law system were made in darker ages.”9(https://www.daowen.com)

From the 10th century onwards,at least in France and Germany,the old personal laws of the various peoples sank into oblivion and the law of the country replaced the law of person.