Peter Birks, The late Regius Professor of Civil Law, University of Oxford and Fellow of All Souls College

The late Peter Birks was Regius Professor of Civil Law in the University of Oxford, and Fellow of All Souls College. Widely renowned for his work on Roman law, the English law of obligations, and legal history, he was founder of the Clarendon Law Lectures, editor of the Clarendon Law Series, and editor of the Oxford English Law Series.


Eric Descheemaeker is a Lecturer in European private law at the University of Edinburgh. A former doctoral student of Peter Birks, he specializes in comparative private law and legal history. He is the author of The Division of Wrongs (OUP, 2009).

Eric Descheemaeker

"There is no need to present a complete survey of its contents, considering that it follows the traditional institutional pattern with which readers of this journal will be familiar. But here the parallel with current textbooks ends. This is no ordinary textbook, it is a real, life introduction to Roman law. The lectures are compulsive reading. The book teaches to understand not just Roman law but law as such, to understand how it works." -Boudewijn Sirks, All Souls College Oxford, The Legal History Review