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Why did local laws vary so widely in pre-Revolutionary France?

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Mosaic portrait of Emperor Justinian I with a jeweled crown and halo, from the 6th-century Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna, Italy. — Civil law Justinian I, detail of a 6th-century mosaic at the Church of San Vitale, Ravenna, Italy.

In pre-Revolutionary France, the wide variation in local laws—known as coutumes (customs)—stemmed from the historical fragmentation of political and judicial authority.12

During the early Middle Ages, the collapse of central royal power led to a "checkerboard of lordships," where individual seigneury (manors) exercised their own justice and established unique local rules. These customs were a complex, localized mixture of Roman law, Frankish law, canon law, and [feudal law]. Because each region or manor developed its own practices regarding private law, property, and succession, there was no unified legal system for the kingdom.12

While some regional uniformities emerged after 1200—such as in Normandy and Brittany—and legal scholars later recorded these in coutumiers, the laws remained highly disparate until the French Revolution. The revolutionaries ultimately sought to replace this fragmented system with a unified, statute-based legal framework, viewing the old diversity of customs as an obstacle to the principles of liberty and equality.134