Common law
The common lawso named because it was "common" to all the king's courts across Englandoriginated in the practices of the courts of the English kings in the centuries following the Norman Conquest in 1066. Prior to the Norman Conquest, much of England's legal business took place in the local folk courts of its various shires and hundreds. A variety of other individual courts also existed across the land: urban boroughs and merchant fairs held their own courts, as did the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and large landholders also held their own manorial and seigniorial courts as needed. Additionally, the Catholic Church operated its own court system that adjudicated issues of canon law.
Civil law (legal system)
Consequently, neither of the two waves of Roman influence completely dominated in Europe. Roman law was a secondary source that was applied only when local customs and laws were found lacking on a certain subject. However, after a time, even local law came to be interpreted and evaluated primarily on the basis of Roman law, since it was a common European legal tradition of sorts, and thereby in turn influenced the main source of law. Eventually, the work of civilian glossators and commentators led to the development of a common body of law and writing about law, a common legal language, and a common method of teaching and scholarship, all termed the "jus commune", or law common to Europe, which consolidated canon law and Roman law, and to some extent, feudal law.