<P> The Golden Bull of 1356 was a decree issued by a Reichstag in Nuremberg headed by Emperor Charles IV that fixed, for a period of more than four hundred years, an important aspect of the constitutional structure of the Holy Roman Empire . </P> <P> In China, the Hongwu Emperor created and refined a document he called Ancestral Injunctions (first published in 1375, revised twice more before his death in 1398). These rules served in a very real sense as a constitution for the Ming Dynasty for the next 250 years . </P> <P> The oldest written document still governing a sovereign nation today is that of San Marino . The Leges Statutae Republicae Sancti Marini was written in Latin and consists of six books . The first book, with 62 articles, establishes councils, courts, various executive officers and the powers assigned to them . The remaining books cover criminal and civil law, judicial procedures and remedies . Written in 1600, the document was based upon the Statuti Comunali (Town Statute) of 1300, itself influenced by the Codex Justinianus, and it remains in force today . </P> <P> In 1392 the Carta de Logu was legal code of the Giudicato of Arborea promulgated by the giudicessa Eleanor . It was in force in Sardinia until it was superseded by the code of Charles Felix in April 1827 . The Carta was a work of great importance in Sardinian history . It was an organic, coherent, and systematic work of legislation encompassing the civil and penal law . </P>

The three principles that make up the primary framework of the constitution are