Most German legal historians have heard of a late medieval theory of statuta. However, different views exist as to the content of this theory. Some view it as a theory providing rules on which of several conflicting local laws to apply. Others, in contrast, understand it as a theory on the relation of local laws with the (Roman) common law. The roots of this ambivalence go back to the work of the controversial legal historian Franz Wieacker who used the terminology of theory of statuta for a different phenomenon than his colleagues all over Europe at the time.