Roman law in the Middle Ages

[Carlton Bach]

The Constanmtinopolitan school is not a Western universitas. For that matter, though, neither is a madrassa. I'll have to go back to my books to get the details, but in general terms there seems to be a degree of affinity and copying each other's practices between Byzantine, Islamic and Western schools (with madrassas deriving much of their organisation from Byzantine models and in turn influencing schools in the western Med)

What I wonder about more is the question of 'legal entity'. I don't know whether this was fully codified until well into the medieval period. Neither am I entirely convinced it's not an idea that Roman law did not at least partially develop. Keep in mind that even in classical law, the collegium could own property and receive inheritances. My guess is that this developed further in the context of the CHristian requirement of apostolic poverty - a collegium could legally remain the joint property of its members, but monks and ascetics could not own any property, jointly or singly. Therefore, the concept of a coenobium owning something that its members did not would appear a natural extension of this principle.

I'll see if I find the time to get back to my research. this is one of the questions I've had on and off my radar for a while, with no certain answer as yet.