The second phase of Merêa's work was dedicated to the history of feudal constitution and the history of medieval family and inheritance institutions. The main works of this second phase of Paulo Merêa's career were the summaries of the Lições de História do Direito Português [Lessons in the History of Portuguese Law] (1925), the chapter "Organização social e administração pública" [Social organisation and public administration], in História de Portugal led by Damião Peres (1929), and a few articles on “A concessão da terra portugalense a D. Henrique no séc. IX” [The granting of Portucalense territory to King Henrique in the 9th century] (1934), “ Conventus nobilium ” (1943) or “De 'Portucale' (civitas) ao Portugal de D. Henrique” [De 'Portucale' (civitas) to the Portugal of King Henrique” (1943)] (1943). On family institutions and succession, a few particularly relevant texts were “Arras. Achegas para a solução dum problema filológico-jurídico” [Arras. Suggestions for the solution to a philological and legal problem] (1936), “A 'arra penitencial' no direito hispânico” [The "arra penitencial" in Hispanic law] (1937), “Em torno do casamento 'de juras'” [On the "de juras" marriage] (1937), “Sobre a revogabilidade das doações mortis causa” [On the revocability of mortis causa donations] (1937), “Sobre as origens do executor testamentário” [On the origins of the will executor] (1940), “Sobre as origens da terça” [On the origins of "terça"] (1940), “Estudos sobre a história dos regimes matrimoniais” [Studies on the history of matrimonial property regimes] (1942) or “O problema das doações post obitum ” [The issue of post obitum donations] (1943).

The titles and chronology of the publications suggest that, for Paulo Merêa, the study of institutions and private law was done pari passu . For the historian, grasping the workings of institutions necessarily required an understanding of private law, and this was one of the most prominent features of his historiographical approach. In fact, when in 1923 Merêa published his first collection ( Estudos de História do Direito , 1923), he included texts on private law in the same volume, such as "Considerations on the Need to Study Portuguese Customary Law", as well as on institutions (for example, "How Portugal’s Claims over the Canary Islands Were Sustained" or "Considerations on the Visigothic judex ”). In the article on customary law, which takes the form of a questionnaire intended to guide future studies, the fluidity between the history of institutions and private law is readily apparent: among the various "issues to which attention is drawn" are, for example, "collective life", "procedural and criminal law", and "property relations (property, contracts) — popular economy" (Merêa, P., Estudos de História do Direito I… , 2007, pp. 102-105). When Paulo Merêa republished a portion of his studies on medieval Hispanic law in 1952, he outlined some of the foundations for studying law in that period. Firstly, that the best sources available were the diplomas, as they are the sources that "most effectively shed light on this obscure period of our legal history." (Merêa, P., Estudos de Direito Hispânico… , t. I, p. vii). Likewise, the historian argued that unlike what happened in France, where the Breviary played a leading role, in the Iberian Peninsula it was superseded by the Visigothic Code , alongside the continued influence of Roman legislation (Merêa, P., Estudos de Direito Hispânico… [Studies on Hispanic Law], t. I, pp. vii-viii). In this regard, the element Merêa prioritised most in his work on medieval Hispanic law was the Roman tradition, which led him to study Visigothic legislation, charters (where "the continuity of the Roman element is most evident"), and foral texts. With this, the author aimed to incorporate Roman law into the Germanic elements of Reconquest law, arguing that "To speak of a ‘Germanic period’ and to treat foral law as a chapter of the Germanische Rechtsgeschichte , to prioritise a questionable connection with Norwegian-Icelandic law over the enduring weight of Roman tradition, which appears to me as a series of aberrations" (Idem, p. ix). We used the author's own words to illustrate what he regarded as the major innovation of his work: shifting a historiography that viewed medieval Hispanic law merely as a reincarnation of Germanic law to the background, in order to bring the focus to the Roman element and, beyond that, to demonstrate how the Roman element proved to be essential in the development of medieval institutions.

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