How did the Prussian Civil Code treat agency in 1794?

In 1794, the Prussian Civil Code recognized the principle of representation but treated agency primarily as an aspect of mandate. Under this framework, the power to act as an agent was derived solely from the concept of the mandate itself.1

This approach reflected the era's rationalist legal theory, which viewed agency through a conceptually systematic and narrow lens, contrasting with the more flexible, commercially oriented developments occurring in English law at the time. Unlike later 19th-century legal developments that distinguished between an agent's authority to create legal obligations and the internal contractual relationship between principal and agent, the 1794 code maintained a more unified, mandate-based view of the agency relationship.1