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Napoleonic Code
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The Napoleonic Code, officially the Code civil des Francais, is the French civil code established in 1804 under Napoleon Bonaparte, replacing a patchwork of feudal, regionally varying customary law and Roman-derived law that had differed across France before the Revolution. It embodied Enlightenment and revolutionary principles including legal equality, secular civil status, and freedom of contract, though it also entrenched significant limits on married women legal capacity that were not repealed for well over a century. It became the model civil code adopted or adapted by many nations during and after the Napoleonic era, including Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Quebec, Louisiana, and much of Latin America, making it one of the most influential legal texts in history.
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EraEnacted 1804, under Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of France. 1 Promulgated ByNapoleon Bonaparte, and a drafting commission of four jurists he convened. 1 Cross-Tradition Connections
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Why this is disputed. Quebec's civil-law heritage descends from the French civil-law tradition, though the direct textual ancestor of the Civil Code of Lower Canada is the pre-revolutionary Custom of Paris rather than the Napoleonic Code itself; the two share a common French civil-law lineage.
The Swiss Civil Code was partly influenced by the French Napoleonic Code alongside the German BGB.
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