Development of Foundation Institute in Medieval Europe

The article is focused on the historical development o of foundation institute in Germany, Austria, Slowakia and Czech Republic. Apart from the diversity of routes through which is the foundation institute moving in the last hundred years, in the history can be observed certain parallels. Common is, undoubtedly, Roman legal traditions. In medieval Europe was the foundation idea the domain of the Church, which administered the endowment assets. Reformation and the Enlightenment has moved the foundation sector to the secular sphere. Further on, under the influence of German legal doctrine, there was particular recognition of the foundation's legal entity of its kind, different from the associations of persons. Over the centuries there has been a metamorphosis from the foundation Institute "old-European" through "enlightened" to "formal-legal" in all European countries. At present, foundation law is in Germany regulated the German Civil Code (BGB), in Austria by two foundation acts: from 1974 and 1993, in the Czech Republic by the Act No. 227/1997 Coll. on Foundations and Endowment Funds, in Slowak by the Act. No. 34/2002 Coll., on Foundations.