Between 529 and 534 CE the emperor Justinian had Roman jurists compile the Corpus Juris Civilis, gathering centuries of legal opinion into the Code, Digest, Institutes and Novels. The compilation systematised Roman concepts of property, contract, servitudes and public space, including rules on building lines, party walls, light and the distinction between public and private domain. Rediscovered and taught in medieval Italian universities from the eleventh century, it became the basis of the civil-law tradition across much of Europe. Its categories shaped how land, ownership and obligation were defined.
It gave European cities an enduring legal vocabulary of property, easements and public space that still underlies land tenure, planning and building regulation. The revival of Roman law underpinned the legal machinery through which cities allocate, regulate and tax land.
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