had been composed of elements of procedure and substance it was difficult to separate both parts again. Even the scientific handling of law, which developed during medieval times in the new universities in Italy (in particular in Bologna, Mantua), did not come to a full and clear separation. (The English system of "writs" in the Middle Ages had a similar problem to the Roman tradition with the actio.) In Germany the unity of procedure and substance in the actio definitely was brought to an end with the codification of the Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch (BGB) which came into force on January 1, 1900. The expression Anspruch (§ 194 of BGB) - meaning "claim" - has been "cleared" from procedural elements. And this was the time for "founding" the terms formelles / materielles Recht. However, after World War II the expression formelles Recht obviously was found to be "contaminated" and to a broad extent has been replaced by Prozessrecht, narrowing the idea behind it to "law of litigation" (thereby excluding e.g. the law of other procedures and the law on competences). See also Civil procedure Criminal procedure Hearing (law) Legal technicality Vyavahara Further reading Andreas Kollmann: Begriffs- und Problemgeschichte des Verhältnisses von formellem und materiellem Recht, edition: Duncker & Humblot, Berlin, Schriften zur Rechtsgeschichte no. 68, 1996. Cardozo, Benjamin N. (1998). The Nature of the Judicial Process. New Haven: Yale University Press. Frank, Jerome (1985). Law and the Modern Mind. Birmingham, AL: Legal Classics Library. Levi, Edward H. (1949) An Introduction to Legal Reasoning. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Marshall, Thurgood (2001). Thurgood Marshall: His Speeches, Writings, Arguments, Opinions and Reminiscences. Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books. Miller, Arthur S. (1985). Politics, Democracy and the Supreme Court: Essays on the Future of Constitutional Theory. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Tribe, Laurence (1985). God Save This Honorable Court: How the Choice of Supreme Court Justices Shapes Our History. New York: Random House. Zelermyer, William (1977). The Legal System in Operation. St. Paul, MN: West Publishing. Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for Procedural Law External links US Federal Court Rules Legal procedure