A piece of history

The Department of Civil Law at the University of Valencia is the direct successor of the first chairs of laws that were endowed with the foundation of the University of Valencia in the year 1500.

Its first incumbent was Master Miranda, who held the chair in the academic year 1499-1500. Master Miranda read the lesson at three in the afternoon and earned an annual salary of 25 Aragonese pounds.
Therefore, the University of Valencia has been explaining civil law in their classrooms for over 500 years.

Among the professors that have occupied the Valencian chair of Civil Law we find illustrious and learned people like Perez MAYANS I SÍSCAR and PÉREZ PUJOL, men who codified laws, ministers who signed the decree that meant the definitive abolition of the Inquisition; members of the parliament for Cadiz and Madrid such as Garelly and senators as CALABUIG Y CARRA, there are also Supreme Court magistrates (two, at least, Presidents: GARELLY and CASTÁN TOBEÑAS) and a magistrate of the Constitutional Tribunal Court (DÍEZ-PICAZO).

The books that for two centuries trained lawyers specialising in civil law came out from these chairs: some because the government made them textbooks (Ilustración del Derecho real de España, J. SALA, with great prestige in Mexico, and Lecciones elementales de historia y de derecho civil, mercantil y penal, DEL VISO), and others, because of the scientific authority of their authors, so different in their ways of thinking and exposing the civil law (Derecho civil español, común y foral, José CASTÁN and Fundamentos del Derecho civil patrimonial, by L. DÍEZ-PICAZO).