Contracts History

Contracts History ​​​​​​
Engr. Ahkam Al Taee

With reference to ancient Greece and the presence of Plato who was an Athenian philosopher during the Classical period of Greece, he was the founder of the Platonist school of thought, and the Academy, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world, that philosophy influenced English contract law’s history and Roman thought. In The Laws, Plato devoted little attention to forms of agreement, but recognized the same basic categories for cancelling agreements as exist today.

The legal system of ancient Rome was called Roman Law, including the legal developments spanning over a thousand years of jurisprudence, from the Twelve Tables (c. 449 BC), to the Corpus Juris Civilis (AD 529) ordered by Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian I. It is also sometimes referred to as the Code of Justinian, although this name belongs more properly to the part titled Codex Justinian’s. Roman law forms the basic framework for civil law, the most widely used legal system today, and the terms are sometimes used synonymously. The historical importance of Roman law is reflected by the continued use of Latin legal terminology in many legal systems influenced by it, including common law.

In the 19th Century, the principles of economics, which developed alongside the Industrial Revolution, was “laissez faire”*. This lead to the development of contract law, as with the increased exchange of resources, parties to agreements needed assurances that obligations and promises would be honoured.

The first English Language contract was signed in January 18th, 1939.

* (“laissez faire” is an economic system in which transactions between private parties are absent of any form of government intervention such as regulation)