Roman Law is (unfortunately) Kind of Important

Hey there folks, welcome back to my "very consistent" and "not intermittent" rambling. Today, my online summer class began, and while I'm enjoying it to a degree, I can't help but be a little bummed out by the importance of Roman Law to both historical and legal studies. It's not that I have an issue with Rome, it would be pretty crazy to have beef with an ancient civilization, but I do have an issue with how frequently it comes up, and how much some people seem to obsess over it.

For example, I'm a medievalist. While that mostly means studying the lives and institutions of people who were alive at that time, you pretty quickly run into a need to understand Rome. What was the center of (European) medieval life? Why of course the church, nothing mattered so much as saving your soul and working to ensure your acceptance into heaven. One big factor in this, of course, was to obey the teachings and laws of the Catholic Church. Which, of course, developed alongside and in conversation with Roman legal codes, and can't be understood without acknowledging that connection.

This is ignoring the fact that the Eastern Roman Empire was still an extant and incredibly powerful political factor. The medieval era is often bookended by two events: The fall of Rome in the West, and the fall of Rome in the East. In these readings, the Medieval Era seems almost like the story of how Rome slowly fell apart and died, if not in substance, than certainly in the way that the era is framed.

Roman history is interesting, Roman Law is interesting, and likewise for the Eastern half of the Empire once the Western half was gone. I just wish that I could learn about those events without having to think about the weird fetishization of Rome by some people in the West.