The history of the reception of Roman Law in China is a long-lasting and complex process that begins approximatively in the second half of the 19th century
and includes many different phases, each of which is carachterized by its own
features in terms of translation, production of written works, teaching, codification and legislative activity. Several aspects of this process still need to be fully
clarified, like, for instance, the appearance of the first text-books of Roman Law,
translated or directly composed in China at the beginning of the 20th century,
that seem to be still unknown or, to some extent, too little studied. The purpose
of this paper is to offer a general introduction, from a structural and linguistic
point of view, of two of the first manuals of Roman Law written in Chinese,
with a specific focus on their illustration of the sources of Roman Law.