The period of the true feudal monarchy is embraced by the 12th and 13th centuries, that is to say, it was at this time that the crown again assumed real strength and authority; but so far it had no organs and instruments save those which were furnished by feudalism, now organized under a regular hierarchy, of which the king was the head, the "sovereign enfeoffer of the kingdom" (_souverain fieffeux du royaume_), as he came later on to be called. This new position of affairs was the result of three great factors: the revival of Roman Law, the final organization of feudalism and the rise of the privileged towns. The revival of Roman law began in France and Italy in the second half of the 11th century, developing with extraordinary brilliance in the latter country at the university of Bologna, which was destined for a long time to dominate Europe. Roman law spread rapidly in the French schools and universities, except that of Paris, which was closed to it by the papacy; and the influence of this study was so great that it transformed society. On the one hand it contributed largely to the reconstitution of the royal power, modelling the rights of the king on those of the Roman emperor. On the other hand it wrought a no less profound change in private law. From this time dates the division of old France into the _Pays de droit ecrit_, in which Roman law, under the form in which it was codified by Justinian, was received as the ordinary law; and the _Pays de coutume_, where it played only a secondary part, being generally valid only as _ratio scripta_ and not as _lex scripta_. In this period the customs also took definitive form, and over and above the local customs properly so called there were formed customs known as _general_, which held good through a whole province or _bailliage_, and were based on the jurisprudence of the higher jurisdictions. Final organization of feudalism. Feudal character of justice.