coutumier

Updated: May 11, 2025

In other things they governed themselves by a certain "coutumier," a medley of bizarre laws which they had originated among themselves. At any attempt to bring them under civilised rules, the reply always was, "telle étoit la coutume de la côte"; and that definitely closed the matter.

Clarence Henry Haring - The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century

The sections thus formed were again variously subdivided. In the Pays du Droit Coutumier province differed from province, county from county, municipality from municipality, in the nature of its customs. In the Pays du Droit Ecrit the stratum of feudal rules which overlay the Roman law was of the most miscellaneous composition. No such confusion as this ever existed in England.

Sir Henry Sumner Maine - Ancient Law: Its Connection to the History of Early Society

One great division ran through the country and separated it into Pays du Droit Ecrit and Pays du Droit Coutumier, the first acknowledging the written Roman law as the basis of their jurisprudence, the last admitting it only so far as it supplied general forms of expression, and courses of juridical reasoning which were reconcileable with the local usages.

Sir Henry Sumner Maine - Ancient Law: Its Connection to the History of Early Society