The framers of the new German civil code ("Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch") in 1879 owed the arrangement of their matter in no small degree to Thibaut's method and clear classification, but beyond this, the code, based on the civil law of the several German states, which was adroitly blended by the "usus pandectarum" into an harmonious whole, does not reflect his influence. He was one of the earliest to criticize the divisions found in the Institutes, and he carried on with Gustav Hugo a controversy as to these points.