Bailments first began to become an important subject of litigation in England during the period when the Roman law or civil law was exerting its greatest influence upon the jurisprudence of England. As bailment law in Rome was well defined, early English legal writers on the subject were greatly influenced by the Civil law and adopted the Roman division which was a mere catalogue rather than a scientific classification.5

1 Stephen's Com., bk. 2, pt. 2, c. 5, p. 80.

2 Jones on Bailments, 1.

3 Jones on Bailments, 117. 4 2 Blackstone's Commentaries, 451.