English Law and the Renaissance: The Rede Lecture for 1901 — John Shaqi
English Law and the Renaissance: The Rede Lecture for 1901Maitland, Frederic William
History
English Law and the Renaissance: The Rede Lecture for 1901
Maitland, Frederic William
Law -- England -- History; Renaissance -- England
When Pole left England in 1532 he went to Avignon where Alciato had
lately been lecturing and became for a short while a pupil of Giovanni
Francesco Ripa (Zimmermann, _Kardinal Pole_, 1893, p. 51), who was both
canonist and legist. Whether at any time Pole made a serious study of
the civil law I do not know. In 1534 Pole and Starkey were together at
Padua; Pole was studying theology, Starkey the civil law. Starkey in a
letter says ‘Francis Curtius is dead, to the grief of those who follow
the doctrine of Bartholus.’ Perhaps we may infer from this that Starkey
was in the camp of the Anti-Bartolists (_Letters and Papers, Henry
VIII._, vol. VII., p. 331). In 1535 he says that he has been studying the
civil law in order to form ‘a better judgment of the politic order and
customs used in our country’ (_Ibid._ vol. VIII., p. 80).
[Sidenote: _The Reception in Germany._]
[12] For a general view of the Reception in Germany with many references
to other books, see Schröder, _Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte_, ed. 2, pp. 743
ff.; ed. 3, pp. 767 ff.
[Sidenote: _Modern estimates of the Reception._]
[13] For a moderate defence of the Reception, see Windscheid,
_Pandektenrecht_, ed. 7, vol. I., pp. 23 ff. (§ 10). Ihering appeals
from Nationality to Universality (cosmopolitanism); _Geist des römischen
Rechts_, ed. 5, vol. I., p. 12: ‘So lange die Wissenschaft sich nicht
entschliesst, dem Gedanken der Nationalität den der Universalität als
gleichberechtigten zur Seite zu setzen, wird sie weder im Stande sein
die Welt, in der sie selber lebt, zu begreifen, noch auch die geschehene
Reception des römischen Rechts wissenschaftlich zu rechtfertigen.’ The
following sentences may, I believe, be taken as typical of much that
has been written of late years. Brunner, _Grundzüge der deutschen
Rechtsgeschichte_, 1901, p. 231: ‘Allein was stets Tadel und Vorwurf
hervorrufen wird, ist die Art, wie die Rezeption … durchgeführt wurde.
Ein nationales Unglück war jenes engherzige Ignorieren des deutschen
Rechts, jenes geistlose und rein äusserliche Aufpfropfen römischer
Rechtssätze auf einheimische Verhältnisse, die Unkenntnis des Gegensatzes
zwischen diesen und dem römischen Rechte, welche taub machte gegen die
Wahrheit, dass kein Volk mit der Seele eines anderen zu denken vermag.’
[Sidenote: _Public reading of the canon law forbidden._]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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