Belgium became independent in 1830. In this constitutional monarchy, legal norms would find their place in a hierarchy of norms of which the constitution formed the pinnacle. In practice, the country renewed only a part of its legal norms. Many sources predating 1830 remained in force. Which ones? Which measures did they include? With the aim of putting these anciennes lois et ordonnances in order, a Royal Decree of 18 April 1846 established a royal Commission for Old Laws and Ordinances of Belgium (Commission royale des anciennes lois et ordonnances de Belgique), which was composed of politicians and professors of law faculties. Initially, the Commission was at the service of judicial practice. Its activities were considerably diminished by the First World War and it was only in 1950 that it took up its full range of activities again. At that time, the Commission was invested in exclusively by legal historians, who reoriented it to serve the science of legal history. Since 1846, the Commission has decided to divide the publication of legal texts into three collections: the ordinances, the customaries, and the treaties. In each division, it distinguished between acts regarding the old Netherlands and those regarding the Principalities of Liège, Stavelot, and Bouillon. The volumes concerning Liège, Stavelot, and Bouillon were finished in 1878. The publication of the ordinances of the other territories were organised into three series: (1) the Burgundian period (1381–1506), (2) the Habsburg and Spanish period (1506–1700), and (3) the Austrian period (1700–1794). The series concerning the Austrian period was completed in 1942. For the second series, the ordinances of Philip II are still being dealt with. Work on the first series was only begun in the twentieth century and the editors have reached the period of Philip the Good (who died in 1467). The publication of customaries was divided into thirteen series according to the old principalities of the Southern Netherlands which were situated in the current territory ...