Chapter III: Part 3

[55] As regards Germany, the theoretical continuance of the Roman empire is not to be forgotten, but its influence on the practical Reception of Roman law may be overrated. In the age of the Reception Roman law came to the aid, not of imperialism, but of particularism. Then it is true that English law was inoculated in the thirteenth century when Bracton copied from Azo of Bologna. The effect of this is well stated by Dr Brunner in the inaugural address delivered by him as rector of the University of Berlin (_Der Antheil des deutschen Rechtes an der Entwicklung der Universitäten_, Berlin, 1896, p. 15): ‘In England und Frankreich, wo die Aufnahme römischer Rechtsgedanken früher erfolgte, hat diese nach Art einer prophylactischen Impfung gewirkt und das mit ihnen gesättigte nationale Recht widerstandsfähig gemacht gegen zerstörende Infectionen.’ As to the Roman law in Bracton, I may be allowed to refer to _Bracton and Azo_, Selden Society, 1895: in the introduction to that volume I have ventured to controvert some sentences that were written by Sir H. Maine. Bracton became important for a second time in the sixteenth century when (1569) his book was printed, for it helped Coke to arrange his ideas, as any one may see who looks at the margin of Coke’s books. The medieval chancery has often been accused of romanizing. Its procedure was suggested by a summary procedure that had been devised by decretists and legists: the general aim of that scheme was the utmost simplicity and rapidity. (Contrast this summary procedure as revealed by _Select Cases in Chancery_, ed. Baildon, and _Select Cases in the Court of Requests_, ed. Leadam, with the solemn procedure of the civil law exemplified by _Select Cases in the Court of Admiralty_, ed. Marsden: these three books are published by the Selden Society.) On the other hand, no proof has been given that in the middle age the chancery introduced any substantive law of Roman origin. At a later time when it began to steal work (suits for legacies and the like) from the ecclesiastical courts, it naturally borrowed the rules by which those matters had theretofore been governed.

A full history of the Reception in Scotland seems to be a desideratum. But see Goudy, _Fate of Roman Law_ (Inaugural Lecture), 1894; also J. M. Irvine, _Roman Law_ in _Green’s Encyclopædia of the Law of Scotland_. Whether at any time the Reception in Scotland ran the length that it ran in Germany may be doubted; but the influence exercised by English example since 1603 would deserve the historian’s consideration. Even if this influence went no further than the establishment of the habit of finding ‘authority’ in decided cases, it would be of great importance. Where such a habit is established in practice and sanctioned by theory, any return to the pure text, such as that which was preached in Germany by ‘the historical school,’ would be impossible. Also it may be suggested that the Roman law which played upon the law of Scotland in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was not always very Roman, but was strongly dashed with ‘Natural Law.’ For instance, if in Scotland the firm of partners is a ‘legal person,’ this is not due to the influence of Roman law as it is now understood by famous expositors, or as it was understood in the middle ages. Also (to take another example) it seems impossible to get the Scotch ‘trust’ out of Roman law by any fair process. The suggestion that it is ‘a contract made up of the two nominate contracts of deposit and mandate’ seems a desperate effort to romanize what is not Roman.

[Sidenote: _The persistence of Lombard law._]

[56] Pertile, _Storia del diritto italiano_, ed. 2, vol. II. (2), p. 69: ‘Laonde può dirsi che l’abrogazione definitiva ed espressa della legislazione longobardica nel regno di Napoli non abbia avuto luogo se non al principio del nostro secolo, sotto Giuseppe Bonaparte, al momento in cui vennero publicati colà i codici francesi.’ On p. 65 will be found some of the opprobrious phrases that the civilians applied to Lombard law: ‘nec meretur ius Lombardorum lex appellari sed faex’: ‘non sine ratione dominus Andreas de Isernia vocat leges illas ius asininum.’

[Sidenote: _French law in the universities._]

[57] Esmein, _Histoire du droit français_, ed. 2, p. 757: ‘C’est seulement en 1679 que l’enseignement du droit français reçut une place bien modeste dans les universités.’ Viollet, _Histoire du droit civil français_, p. 217: ‘Lorsqu’en 1679, Louis XIV. érigea à la faculté de Paris une chaire de droit français et une chaire de droit romain, le premier professeur de droit français, Fr. de Launay, commenta les _Institutes_ de Loisel, qui prirent ainsi une situation quasi-officielle à côté des _Institutes_ de Justinien.’ Brissaud, _Histoire du droit français_, p. 237: ‘Le latin avait été jusque-là la langue de l’école. Le premier professeur en droit français à Paris, de Launay, fit son cours en langue française.’

[Sidenote: _German law in the universities._]

[58] Siegel, _Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte_, ed. 3, p. 152: ‘Den ersten und zugleich entscheidenden Schritt in dieser Richtung that Georg Beyer, welcher… zunächst durch einen Zufall veranlasst wurde, an der Wittenberger Universität, wohin er als Pandektist berufen worden war, 1707 eine Vorlesung über das _ius germanicum_ anzukündigen und zu halten.’

[Sidenote: _Professorships in America._]

[59] Thayer, _The Teaching of English Law at Universities_ in _Harvard Law Review_, vol. IX., p. 171: ‘Blackstone’s example was immediately followed here.… In 1779 … a chair of law was founded in Virginia at William and Mary College … and in the same year Isaac Royall of Massachusetts, then a resident in London, made his will, giving property to Harvard College for establishing there that professorship of law which still bears his name.’ The Royall professorship was actually founded in 1815 (_Officers and Graduates of Harvard_, 1900, p. 24). At Cambridge (England) the Downing professorship was founded in 1800.

[Sidenote: _The Inns of Court._]

[60] See _Records of the Honorable Society of Lincoln’s Inn_, 1896 ff.; _Calendar of the Records of the Inner Temple_, 1896. The records of Gray’s Inn are, so I understand, to be published. See also Philip A. Smith, _History of Education for the English Bar_, 1860; Joseph Walton, _Early History of Legal Studies in England_, 1900, read at a meeting of the American Bar Association in 1899. In foreign countries there were gilds or fraternities of lawyers. Thus in Paris the _avocats_ and _procureurs_ about the middle of the fourteenth century formed a fraternity of St Nicholas: ‘dont le chef porte le bâton ou bannière (de là le nom de bâtonnier)’: Brissaud, _Histoire du droit français_, p. 898. But, though a certain care for the education of apprentices was a natural function of the medieval craft-gild, I cannot find that elsewhere than in England fraternities of legal practitioners took upon themselves to educate students and to give what in effect were degrees, and degrees which admitted to practice in the courts. R. Delachenal, _Histoire des avocats au parlement de Paris_ (Paris, 1885), says that, though not proved, it is probable that already in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the _avocat_ had to be either _licencié en lois_ or _licencié en décret_: in other words, a legal degree given by an university was necessary for the intending practitioner. As regards the England of the same age two interesting questions might be asked. Was there any considerable number of doctors or bachelors of law who were not clergymen? Had the English judge or the English barrister usually been at an university? I am inclined to think that a negative answer should be given to the first question and perhaps to the second also. Apparently Littleton (to take one example) is not claimed by Oxford or Cambridge.

[Sidenote: _Sir T. Smith and the Inns of Court._]

[61] Smith, _Inaugural Oration_, MS. Baker, XXXVII. 409 (Camb. Univ. Lib.): ‘… At vero nostrates, et Londinenses iurisconsulti, quibuscum disputare, cum ruri sim et extra academiam, non illibenter soleo, qui barbaras tantum et semigallicas nostras leges inspexerint, homines ab omnibus suis humanioribus disciplinis et hac academiae nostrae instructione semotissimi, etiam cum quid e philosophia, theologiave depromptum in quaestione ponatur, Deus bone! quam apte, quamque explicate singula resumunt, quanta cum facilitate et copia, quantaque cum gratia et venustate, vel confirmant sua, vel refellunt aliena! Certe nec dialecticae vim multum in eis desideres, nec eloquentiae splendorem. Eorum oratio est Anglicana quidem, sed non sordida, non inquinata, non trivialis, gravis nonnunquam et copiosa, saepe urbana et faceta, non destituta similitudinum et exemplorum copia, lenis et aequabilis, et pleno velut alveo fluens, nusquam impedita. Quae res tantam mihi eorum hominum admirationem concitavit, ut aliquandiu vehementer optarim, secessionem aliquam ab ista academia facere et Londinum concedere, ut eos in suis ipsis scholis ac circulis disputantes audirem, quod an sim facturus aliquando, cum feriae longae, et quasi solenne iusticium, nostris praelectionibus indicatur, haud equidem pro certo affirmaverim.’

[Sidenote: _Multiplication of English law books._]

[62] Soule, _Year Book Bibliography_, in _Harvard Law Review_, vol. XIV., p. 564: ‘In 1553 the field of Year-Book publication was entered by Richard Tottell, who for thirty-eight years occupied it so fully as to admit no rival. There are about 225 known editions of separate Years or groups of Years which bear his imprint or can be surely attributed to his press.… He is pre-eminently _the_ publisher of Year Books, and he so completely put them ‘in print’ and so cheapened their price that he evidently made them a popular and profitable literature.’

In 1550 an English lawyer’s library of printed books might apparently have comprised (besides some Statutes and Year Books) Littleton’s Tenures, The Old Tenures, Statham’s Abridgement, Fitzherbert’s Abridgement, Liber Intrationum, The Old Natura Brevium, perhaps a Registrum Brevium (if that book, printed in 1531, was published before 1553), Institutions or principal grounds etc. [1544], Carta feodi simplicis, [Phaer’s] New book of presidentes, Diversite de courts, Novae Narrationes, Articuli ad novas narrationes, Modus tenendi curiam baronis, Modus tenendi unum hundredum, Fitzherbert’s Justice of the Peace, Perkins’s Profitable Book, Britton, Doctor and Student. A great part of what was put into print was of medieval origin and had been current in manuscript. In 1600 the following might have been added: Glanvill, Bracton, Fitzherbert’s Natura Brevium, Broke’s Abridgement, Broke’s New Cases, Rastell’s Entries, Staundford’s Prerogative and Pleas of the Crown, Crompton’s Justice of the Peace, Crompton’s Authority of Courts, West’s Symbolæography, Theloall’s Digest, Smith’s Commonwealth, Lambard’s Archaionomia and Eirenarcha, Fulbecke’s Direction or Preparative to the Study of the Law [1600], Plowden’s Commentaries, Dyer’s Reports and the first volume of Coke’s Reports [1600]. This represents a great advance. Already Fulbecke in his curious book (which was reprinted as still useful in 1829) attempts a review of English legal literature: a critical estimate of Dyer, Plowden, Staundford, Perkins and other writers. Lambard’s revelation of the Anglo-Saxon laws was not unimportant, for a basis was thus laid for national boasts; and, but for the publication of Glanvill, Bracton and Britton, the work that was done by Coke would have been impossible.

Were any books about Roman law printed in England before 1600, except a few of Gentili’s?

[Sidenote: _The Court of Requests._]

[63] See Mr Leadam’s Introduction to _Select Pleas in the Court of Requests_ (Seld. Soc.) and _Dict. Nat. Biog._ s.n. Caesar, Sir Julius.

[Sidenote: _Cowell’s ‘Interpreter.’_]

[64] See Gardiner, _Hist. England_, 1603-1642, vol. II., pp. 66-68; E. C. Clark, _Cambridge Legal Studies_, pp. 74-75. Cowell’s _Institutiones_ (less known than the _Interpreter_) are an attempt, ‘in the main very able,’ so Dr Clark says, to bring English materials under Roman rubrics. It is a book which might have played a part in a Reception; but it came too late.

[Sidenote: _Roman-Dutch law._]

[65] There can now be few, if any, countries outside the British Empire in which a rule of law is enforced because it is (or is deemed to be) a rule of Roman law. See _Galliers_ v. _Rycroft_ [1901] A. C. 130, for a recent discussion before the Judicial Committee (on an appeal from Natal) of the import of a passage in the Digest. Are there many lands in which so much respect would be paid by a tribunal and for practical purposes to a response of Papinian’s? I think not.

[Sidenote: _First Charter of Virginia._]

[66] Macdonald, _Select Charters_, 1899, p. 1: ‘The first draft of the charter … was probably drawn by Sir John Popham … but the final form was the work of Sir Edward Coke, attorney general, and Sir John Dodderidge, solicitor general.’

[Sidenote: _First Assembly in Virginia._]

[67] Doyle, _The English in America_, vol. I., p. 211: ‘On the 30th of July, 1619, the first Assembly met in the little church at Jamestown. A full report of its proceedings still exists in the English Record Office (_Colonial Papers_, July 30, 1619).’ An abstract is printed in _Calendar of State Papers, Colonial_, 1574-1660, p. 22.

[Sidenote: _The tenure of Maryland._]

[68] Charter of Maryland, 1632, Macdonald, _Select Charters_, p. 53. In 1620 the grant to the Council of New England (_Ibid._, p. 23) referred to the manor of East Greenwich and reserved by way of rent a fifth part of the ore of gold and silver. The grant of Carolina (_Ibid._, p. 121) reserved a rent of twenty marks and a fourth of the ore. The grant of New Netherlands to the duke of York (_Ibid._, p. 136) reserved a rent of forty beaver skins, if demanded. The grant of Pennsylvania to William Penn speaks of the Castle of Windsor and reserves two beaver skins and a fifth of the gold and silver ore (_Ibid._, p. 185). Georgia was holden as of the honour of Hampton Court in the county of Middlesex at a rent of four shillings for every hundred acres that should be settled (_Ibid._, p. 242).

[Sidenote: _The tenure of Bombay._]

[69] Charter of 1669 printed among _Charters granted to the East India Company_ (no date or publisher’s name): ‘to be holden of us, our heirs and successors as of the manor of East Greenwich in the county of Kent, in free and common soccage and not in capite nor by knight’s service, yielding and paying therefor to us, our heirs and successors at the Custom House, London, the rent or sum of ten pounds of lawful money of England in gold on the thirtieth day of September yearly for ever.’

[Sidenote: _The tenure of Prince Rupert’s land._]

[70] Charter of 1670 incorporating the Hudson’s Bay Company, printed by Beckles Wilson, _The Great Company_, vol. II., pp. 318, 327: ‘yielding and paying yearly to us … two elks and two black beavers, whensoever and as often as we our heirs and successors shall happen to enter into the said countries, territories and regions hereby granted.’

[Sidenote: _Kent and Blackstone._]

[71] Thayer, _The Teaching of English Law at Universities_ in _Harvard Law Review_, vol. IX., p. 170: ‘“I retired to a country village,” Chancellor Kent tells us in speaking of the breaking up of Yale College by the war, where he was a student in 1779, “and, finding Blackstone’s Commentaries, I read the four volumes.… The work inspired me at the age of fifteen with awe, and I fondly determined to be a lawyer.” … “There is abundant evidence,” if we may rely upon the authority of Dr Hammond, whose language I quote, “of the immediate absorption of nearly twenty-five hundred copies of the Commentaries in the thirteen colonies before the Declaration of Independence.”’

[Sidenote: _Marshall and Blackstone._]

[72] Thayer, _John Marshall_, 1901, p. 6: ‘When Marshall was about eighteen years old he began to study Blackstone.… He seems to have found a copy of Blackstone in his father’s house.… Just now the first American edition was out (Philadelphia, 1771-2), in which the list of subscribers, headed by the name of “John Adams, barrister at law, Boston,” had also that of “Captain Thomas Marshall, Clerk of Dunmore County.”’

[Sidenote: _Roman law in America._]

[73] It may be interesting to notice that in 1856, and perhaps even in 1871, Sir H. Maine believed that the Code of Louisiana (‘of all republications of Roman law the one which appears to us the clearest, the fullest, the most philosophical and the best adapted to the exigencies of modern society’) had a grand destiny before it in the United States. ‘Now it is this code, and not the Common Law of England which the newest American States are taking for the substratum of their laws.… The Roman law is, therefore, fast becoming the lingua franca of universal jurisprudence.’ (Maine, _Roman Law and Legal Education_, 1856, reprinted in _Village Communities_, ed. 3, pp. 360-1.) Nowadays this hope or fear of a Reception of Roman law in the United States seems, so I am given to understand, quite unfounded. See e.g. J. F. Dillon, _Laws and Jurisprudence of England and America_, 1894, p. 155: ‘the common law [in distinction from the Roman or civil law] is the basis of the laws of every State and Territory of the Union, with comparatively unimportant and gradually waning exceptions.’

[Sidenote: _Ihering and the litigious Englishman._]

[74] Ihering, _Der Kampf um’s Recht_, ed. 10, pp. 45, 69: ‘Ich habe bereits oben das Beispiel des kampflustigen Engländers angeführt, und ich kann hier nur wiederholen, was ich dort gesagt: in dem Gulden, um den er hartnäckig streitet, steckt die politische Entwicklung Englands. Einem Volke, bei dem es allgemeine Uebung ist, dass Jeder auch im Kleinen und Kleinsten sein Recht tapfer behauptet, wird Niemand wagen, das Höchste, was es hat, zu entreissen, und es ist daher kein Zufall, dass dasselbe Volk des Alterthums, welches im Innern die höchste politische Entwicklung und nach Aussen hin die grösste Kraftentfaltung aufzuweisen hat, das römische, zugleich das ausgebildetste Privatrecht besass.’

[Sidenote: _Codes in English Colonies._]

[75] Thus in particular Queensland in 1899 enacted a criminal code of 707 sections. See _Journal of the Society of Comparative Legislation_, New Ser., vol. VI., pp. 555-560: ‘The precedents utilised in framing the Code were the [in England abortive] draft English codes of 1879 and 1880, the Italian Penal Code of 1888, and the Penal Code of the State of New York.’ See also Ilbert, _Legislative Methods_, p. 155.

[Sidenote: _German Civil Code._]

[76] Some information in English about the new German code will be found in articles by Mr E. Schuster, _Law Quarterly Review_, vol. XII., p. 17, and _Journal of the Society of Comparative Legislation_, Old Series, vol. I., p. 191. Despite the careful exclusion of almost all words derived from the Latin (except _Hypothek_, which happens to be Greek), the new law book may look Roman to an Englishman; but then it does not look Roman to Germans. The following sentences are taken from a speech delivered in the Reichstag (Mugdan, _Materialien zum bürgerlichen Gesetzbuch_, vol. I., pp. 876-7): ‘In dieser Beziehung ist vor Allem der Vorwurf gegen den Entwurf erhoben, er enthalte materiell kein deutsches Recht.… Selten ist ein Vorwurf unbegründeter gewesen.… Das Sachenrecht ist von A bis Z durchaus deutsches Recht.… Was dann den Begriff des Besitzes betrifft, von der ganzen römischen Besitztheorie ist nichts übrig geblieben.… Der allgemeine Theil des Obligationenrechtes ist natürlich römischen Ursprunges.… Kommen wir aber zu den einzelnen speziellen Rechtsgeschäften, so treffen wir auch da sofort wieder deutsches Recht.… Auch das Familienrecht ist durchaus deutschrechtlich.… Dann ist das Erbrecht durch und durch deutschrechtlichen Ursprunges.…’ The supposition that codification means romanization is baseless; it may mean deromanization. But the great lesson to be learnt by Englishmen from the German Code is that a democratically elected assembly, which is for many purposes divided into bitterly contending fractions, can be induced to show a wonderful forbearance when uniformity of law is to be attained.

[Sidenote: _Unity of law._]

[77] Molinaeus (Charles Du Moulin), _Oratio de concordia et unione consuetudinum Franciae_, in _Opera_ (1681), vol. II., p. 691: ‘Mihi quoque videtur nihil aptius, nihil efficacius ad plures provincias sub eodem imperio retinendas et fovendas, nec fortius nec honestius vinculum quam communio et conformitas eorundem morum legumve utilium et aequabilium.’

[Sidenote: _The school at Harvard._]

[78] The name of Harvard is here mentioned without prejudice to the just claims of any other American university; but the _Harvard Law Review_, edited by a committee of students, is a journal of which any school might be proud.

CAMBRIDGE: PRINTED BY J. & C. F. CLAY, AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.