65. It will be manifest from what has been said how greatly Robertson has been mistaken in his position, that “in the eleventh century the art of making paper, in the manner now become universal, was invented, by means of which not only the number of manuscripts increased but the study of the sciences was wonderfully facilitated.”[119] Even Ginguéné, better informed on such subjects than Robertson, has intimated something of the same kind. But paper, whenever, or wherever invented, was very sparingly used, and especially in manuscript books, among the French, Germans, or English, or linen paper, even among the Italians, till near the close of the period which this chapter comprehends. Upon the “study of the sciences” it could as yet have had very little effect. The vast importance of the invention was just beginning to be discovered. It is to be added, as a remarkable circumstance, that the earliest linen paper was of very good manufacture, strong and handsome, though perhaps too much like card for general convenience; and every one is aware that the first printed books are frequently beautiful in the quality of their paper. [119] Hist. of Charles V. vol. i. note 10. Heeren inclines to the same opinion, p. 200. |Importance of legal studies.| 66. III. The application of general principles of justice to the infinitely various circumstances which may arise in the disputes of men with each other is in itself an admirable discipline of the moral and intellectual faculties. Even where the primary rules of right and policy have been obscured in some measure by a technical and arbitrary system, which is apt to grow up, perhaps inevitably, in the course of civilisation, the mind gains in precision and acuteness, though at the expense of some important qualities; and a people wherein an artificial jurisprudence is cultivated, requiring both a regard to written authority, and the constant exercise of a discriminating judgment upon words, must be deemed to be emerging from ignorance. Such was the condition of Europe in the twelfth century. The feudal customs, long unwritten, though latterly become more steady by tradition, were in some countries reduced into treatises: we have our own Glanvil in the reign of Henry II., and in the next century much was written upon the national laws in various parts of Europe. Upon these it is not my intention to dwell; but the importance of the civil law in its connection with ancient learning, as well as with moral and political science, renders it deserving of a place in any general account either of mediæval or modern literature. |Roman laws never wholly unknown.|