The German Historical School of Jurisprudence is a 19th-century intellectual movement in the study of German law. With Romanticism as its background, it emphasized the historical limitations of the law. The Historical School is based on the writings and teachings of Gustav von Hugo and especially Friedrich Carl von Savigny. The basic premise of the German Historical School is that law is not to be regarded as an arbitrary grouping of regulations laid down by some authority. Rather, those regulations are to be seen as the expression of the convictions of the people, in the same manner as language, customs and practices are expressions of the people. The law is grounded in a form of popular consciousness called the Volksgeist. The German Historical School was divided into Romanists and the Germanists. The Romantists, to whom Savigny also belonged, held that the Volksgeist springs from the reception of the Roman law. While the Germanists (K.F. Eichhorn, J. Grimm, G. Beseler, O.von Gierke) saw medieval German Law as the expression of the German Volksgeist.