III.  Only those glossed passages are binding which contain the latest rule of law.  Consequently the historical materials contained in them, though always of great importance for discovering the latest law, have not binding force.  IV.  Those precepts of the Roman law which relate to Roman manners and institutions unknown in Germany are inapplicable here, though glossed.  V. The Roman law has but slight application to such objects and transactions as were unknown to the Romans and are of purely Germanic origin.  VI.  With the limitations above enumerated the Roman law has been adopted as a whole and not in detached parts.

In England Roman law has had practically no effect.  In the year 1149 a Lombard jurist, Vacarius, lectured on it at Oxford; but there were no results.  Canon law is, of course, a force to be reckoned with in Britain as on the Continent.

Before we enter the question of women’s rights during the Middle Ages, we must take a general survey of the character of that period; for obviously we cannot understand its legislation without some idea of the background of social, political, and intellectual life.  In the first place, then, the Church was everywhere triumphant and its ideals governed legislation completely on such matters as marriage.  The civil law of Rome, as drawn up first by the epitomisers and later studied more carefully at Bologna, served to indicate general principles in cases to which canon law did not apply; but there was little jurisdiction in which the powers ecclesiastical could not contrive to take a hand.  At the same time Germanic ideals and customs continued a powerful force.  For a long time after the partition of the vast empire of Charlemagne government was in a state of chaos and transition from which eventually the various distinct states arose.  A struggle between kings and nobles for supremacy dragged along for many generations; and as during that contest each feudal lord was master in his own domain, there was no consistent code of laws for all countries or, indeed, for the same country.  Yet the character of the age determined in a general way the spirit that dictated all laws.  Society rested on a military and aristocratic basis, and when the ability to wield arms is essential to maintain one’s rights, the position of women will be affected by that fact.  Beginning with the twelfth century city life began to exert a political influence; and this, again, did not fail to have an effect on the status of women.  Of any participation of women in intellectual life there could be no question until the Renaissance, although we do meet here and there with isolated exceptions, a few ladies of high degree like Roswitha of Gandersheim and Hadwig, Duchess of Swabia, niece of Otto the Great, and Heloise.  The learning was exclusively scholastic, and from any share in that women were barred.  When people are kept in ignorance, there is less inducement for them to believe that they have any rights or to assert them if they do think so.