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TheReceptionInEnglishdRenaissance 11 - 19 Nov 2014 - Main.JulianAzran
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The Reception, a process in the renaissance of replacement of "barbarian" medieval customary law by classical roman law [1], was occurring during the renaissance over Europe. Nevertheless, according to F.W. Maitland, as he explained in English Law and the Renaissance (1901), such process did not have the same success in England as in the rest of Continental Europe. What are the reasons that Maitland and latter authors give for the survival of common law in England? | | | After the Glossators were the Commentators, who took the next step of attempting to codify the previously extracted legal principles into a cogent system of laws. They combined Roman law with the statutory law of Italian cities and with canon law; Roman law was adapted to address practical contemporary needs. And so, lawyers began to be trained in Roman law, but this did not occur only in Italy. The new science of Roman law as inaugurated by the Glossators in Bologna spread out into other countries, including France and Germany. Through the action of university trained judges, lawyers, and draftsmen of legal documents, the Roman law began to spread across Europe. This was the Reception. | |
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< | Why was there no Reception in England? Some of the same types forces and circumstances which had led to the Reception in Europe actually worked against it occurring in England. First, Henry II (1154-1189) had established a well-ordered system of royal courts before the Commentators had begun to codify the Corpus Juris into a coherent legal system. The royal courts made possible the beginning of a unification and soon, comprehensive statements of the national law. Second, the universities at Oxford and Cambridge trained the English legal profession in the common law. England had its own lawyers trained in its own system. The Reception tended to occur in places where there was no such robust legal system. Thus, England didn’t have a particular need for a new body of law. In the words of Maitland, “there was no need in England for that reconstitution de l’unité nationale which fills a large space in schemes of French history, and in which, for good and ill, the Roman texts gave their powerful aid to the centripetal and monarchical forces.” By this time, there was a certain level of political and legal stability in England, unparalleled by any of the territories where the Roman law had its greatest effect. | >
> | Why was there no Reception in England? Some of the same forces and circumstances which had led to the Reception in Europe actually worked against it occurring in England. First, Henry II (1154-1189) had established a well-ordered system of royal courts before the Commentators had begun to codify the Corpus Juris into a coherent legal system. The royal courts made possible the beginning of a unification and soon, comprehensive statements of the national law. Second, the universities at Oxford and Cambridge trained the English legal profession in the common law. England had its own lawyers trained in its own system. The Reception tended to occur in places where there was no such robust legal system. Thus, England didn’t have a particular need for a new body of law. In the words of Maitland, “there was no need in England for that reconstitution de l’unité nationale which fills a large space in schemes of French history, and in which, for good and ill, the Roman texts gave their powerful aid to the centripetal and monarchical forces.” By this time, there was a certain level of political and legal stability in England, unparalleled by any of the territories where the Roman law had its greatest effect. | | | -- JulianAzran - 18 Nov 2014
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