Napoleonic Code

Napoleonic Code

n.

Eng. name for CODE NAPOLÉON

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French Code Civil

French civil code enacted by Napoleon in 1804.

It clarified and made uniform the private law of France and followed Roman law in being divided into three books: the law of persons, things, and modes of acquiring ownership of things. In Louisiana, the only civil-law state in the U.S., the civil code of 1825 (revised in 1870 and still in force) is closely connected to the Napoleonic Code. See also law code.

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▪ France [1804]

French  Code Napoléon  

      French civil code enacted in 1804 and still extant, with revisions; it has been the main influence in the 19th-century civil codes of most countries of continental Europe and Latin America.

      The demand for codification and, indeed, codification itself preceded the Napoleonic era. Diversity of laws was the dominant characteristic of the prerevolutionary legal order. Roman law governed in the south of France, whereas in the northern provinces, including Paris, a customary law had developed, based largely on feudal Frankish and Germanic institutions. Marriage and family life were almost exclusively within the control of the Roman Catholic church and governed by canon law. In addition, starting in the 16th century, a growing number of matters were governed by royal decrees and ordinances and by a case law developed by the parlements. Each area had its own collection of customs, and, despite efforts in the 16th and 17th centuries to organize and codify each of these local customary laws, there had been little success at national unification. Vested interests blocked efforts at codification, because reform would encroach upon their privileges.

      After the French Revolution, codification became not only possible but almost necessary. Powerful control groups such as the manors and the guilds had been destroyed; the secular power of the church had been suppressed; and the provinces had been transformed into subdivisions of the new national state. The Napoleonic Code, therefore, was founded on the premise that, for the first time in history, a purely rational law should be created, free from all past prejudices and deriving its content from “sublimated common sense”; its moral justification was to be found not in ancient custom or monarchical paternalism but in its conformity to the dictates of reason.

      Under the code all male citizens are equal: primogeniture, hereditary nobility, and class privileges are extinguished; civilian institutions are emancipated from ecclesiastical control; freedom of person, freedom of contract, and inviolability of private property are fundamental principles.

      The first book of the code deals with the law of persons: the enjoyment of civil rights, the protection of personality, domicile, guardianship, tutorship, relations of parents and children, marriage, personal relations of spouses, and the dissolution of marriage by annulment or divorce. The code subordinated women to their fathers and husbands, who controlled all family property, determined the fate of children, and were favoured in divorce proceedings. Many of these provisions were only reformed in the second half of the 20th century. The second book deals with the law of things: the regulation of property rights—ownership, usufruct, and servitudes. The third book deals with the methods of acquiring rights: by succession, donation, marriage settlement, and obligations. In the last chapters, the code regulates a number of nominate contracts, legal and conventional mortgages, limitations of actions, and prescriptions of rights.

      With regard to obligations, the law establishes the traditional Roman-law categories of contract, quasi-contract, delict, and quasi-delict. Freedom to contract is not spelled out explicitly but is an underlying principle in many provisions.

      The code was originally introduced into areas under French control in 1804: Belgium, Luxembourg, parts of western Germany, northwestern Italy, Geneva, and Monaco. It was later introduced into territories conquered by Napoleon: Italy, The Netherlands, the Hanseatic lands, and much of the remainder of western Germany and Switzerland. The code is still in use in Belgium, Luxembourg, and Monaco.

      During the 19th century, the Napoleonic Code was voluntarily adopted in a number of European and Latin American countries, either in the form of simple translation or with considerable modifications. The Italian Civil Code of 1865, enacted after the unification of Italy, had a close but indirect relationship with the Napoleonic Code. The new Italian code of 1942 departed to a large extent from this tradition. In Latin America in the early 19th century, the code was introduced into Haiti and the Dominican Republic and is still in force there. Bolivia and Chile followed closely the arrangement of the code and borrowed much of its substance. The Chilean code was in turn copied by Ecuador and Colombia, closely followed by Uruguay and Argentina.

      In Louisiana, the only civil-law state in the United States (which is otherwise bound by common law), the civil code of 1825 (revised in 1870 and still in force) is closely connected with the Napoleonic Code.

      The influence of the Napoleonic Code was diminished at the turn of the century by the introduction of the German Civil Code (1900) and the Swiss Civil Code (1912); the former was adopted by Japan and the latter by Turkey. In the 20th century, codes in Brazil, Mexico, Greece, and Peru were products of a comparative method, with ideas borrowed from the German, French, and Swiss.

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