We refer to the Assizes of Romania as the collection of feudal law compiled by an unknown author in Frankish Morea between the years 1333 and 1346. This collection is of significant interest as it is the only one drafted in Romania, on former Byzantine territory.

It reflects to some extent the meeting of Western feudalism, which was established on Byzantine land after the Fourth Crusade, with the social, legal, and political regime of the Byzantine Empire. It therefore belongs to the family of legal collections compiled in conquered areas, where feudalism had not developed organically but was established on pre-existing regimes.

The Assizes of Romania spread widely beyond the borders of their birthplace and were applied in many areas of Romania, mainly incorporated into the Venetian colonial regime at the end of the 14th century, and seem to have survived until the 18th century. The issue of the development of Moraitic law, its dissemination, and its survival through the Assizes is situated within the broad framework of relations among three societies, each with its own structures, institutions, and mentality: Byzantium, feudal Western Europe, and Venice coexisted for many years on the territories of Romania.

The historical study of the Assizes of Romania, the conditions that gave rise to them, the sources with which they are connected, and finally, the stages of the formation of the collection until its final form, contributed to the understanding of their nature, reflecting the social, legal, and political life of Frankish Morea.

As a collection of feudal law, the Assizes do not fully encapsulate the law that was in force in Frankish Morea during the 14th century. However, they help us understand the nature of feudalism in various regions of Romania.

David Jacobi (Antwerp 1928-2018) was a historian of the Middle Ages and the social economic history of the Latin and Byzantine East. He hailed from a Polish-Russian Jewish family, which in 1942 sought refuge from Belgium to Switzerland, escaping Nazi persecution. In 1947, he emigrated with his family to Palestine, where from 1949 he studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

He specialized at the Sorbonne in Paris in the agrarian society of the late Byzantine Empire and in 14th century Greece, under the supervision of the prominent Byzantinist Paul Lemerle. From 1958 to 1996, he taught at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and as a visiting professor, he taught at the universities of Berkeley, California, Pennsylvania, Princeton, and the University of Venice.

He is among the foremost scholars of the economy and trade relations in the Eastern Mediterranean and contributed to the understanding of the Byzantine Empire as a central force in the broader social and economic geographical context. He also studied medieval Cyprus and the island's trade relations with Byzantium, Genoa, Venice, and Pisa.

His book Feudalism in Medieval Greece was awarded the Gustave Schlumberger prize of the Academy of Inscriptions and Letters in Paris in 1973.