The Evolution of Western Private Law
The Evolution of Western Private Law

Author: Alan Watson

Publisher: JHU Press

Published: 2003-05-22

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13: 0801877083

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In The Evolution of Western Private Law, renowned legal scholar Alan Watson presents a comprehensive overview of legal change in the Western world. Watson explains why and how such change occurs in mature systems, in underdeveloped systems, and when legal systems of different levels of sophistication and from different societal roots—such as those of the Romans and of Germanic tribes—come into contact. Originally intended as a second edition of the author's widely acclaimed The Evolution of Law (1985), this expanded edition has been completely restructured with more than double the number of examples. The result is a work that incorporates all the ideas that Watson has put forward during his twenty-five years studying comparative law and the development of legal systems, combining a remarkable range of sources with superb insight.

The Formation and Transmission of Western Legal Culture
The Formation and Transmission of Western Legal Culture

Author: Serge Dauchy

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2016-12-15

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9783319455648

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This volume surveys 150 law books of fundamental importance in the history of Western legal literature and culture. The entries are organized in three sections: the first dealing with the transitional period of fifteenth-century editions of medieval authorities, the second spanning the early modern period from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, and the third focusing on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The contributors are scholars from all over the world. Each ‘old book’ is analyzed by a recognized specialist in the specific field of interest. Individual entries give a short biography of the author and discuss the significance of the works in the time and setting of their publication, and in their broader influence on the development of law worldwide. Introductory essays explore the development of Western legal traditions, especially the influence of the English common law, and of Roman and canon law on legal writers, and the borrowings and interaction between them. The book goes beyond the study of institutions and traditions of individual countries to chart a broader perspective on the transmission of legal concepts across legal, political, and geographical boundaries. Examining the branches of this genealogical tree of books makes clear their pervasive influence on modern legal systems, including attempts at rationalizing custom or creating new hybrid systems by transplanting Western legal concepts into other jurisdictions.

The Origins of the Western Legal Tradition
The Origins of the Western Legal Tradition

Author: Ellen Goodman

Publisher: Federation Press

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 324

ISBN-13: 9781862871816

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Ellen Goodman uses extensive extracts from original writings to highlight the main themes of the Western legal tradition. The strength of the book is its clear focus on the heart of the tradition: constitutionalism, representative institutions and rule by law. Goodman links Christianity to its origins in Greek philosophy and Judaism. She delves into the position of the Roman Church as the tenuous, Dark Ages conduit. Feudalism lives and dies and the common law and parliament emerge. The author accurately and vividly charts the main currents, avoiding both the shoals and the myriad tributaries, and so enables readers to have a clearer and deeper understanding of our present legal system.

Law and Revolution, the Formation of the Western Legal Tradition
Law and Revolution, the Formation of the Western Legal Tradition

Author: Harold J. Berman

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2009-07-01

Total Pages: 674

ISBN-13: 9780674020856

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The roots of modern Western legal institutions and concepts go back nine centuries to the Papal Revolution, when the Western church established its political and legal unity and its independence from emperors, kings, and feudal lords. Out of this upheaval came the Western idea of integrated legal systems consciously developed over generations and centuries. Harold J. Berman describes the main features of these systems of law, including the canon law of the church, the royal law of the major kingdoms, the urban law of the newly emerging cities, feudal law, manorial law, and mercantile law. In the coexistence and competition of these systems he finds an important source of the Western belief in the supremacy of law. Written simply and dramatically, carrying a wealth of detail for the scholar but also a fascinating story for the layman, the book grapples with wideranging questions of our heritage and our future. One of its main themes is the interaction between the Western belief in legal evolution and the periodic outbreak of apocalyptic revolutionary upheavals. Berman challenges conventional nationalist approaches to legal history, which have neglected the common foundations of all Western legal systems. He also questions conventional social theory, which has paid insufficient attention to the origin of modem Western legal systems and has therefore misjudged the nature of the crisis of the legal tradition in the twentieth century.

Descoberta del dret romà a l'Occident medieval, La / The Discovery of Roman Law in the Medieval West
Descoberta del dret romà a l'Occident medieval, La / The Discovery of Roman Law in the Medieval West

Author: Max Turull Rubinat

Publisher: Edicions Universitat Barcelona

Published: 2014-02-06

Total Pages: 121

ISBN-13: 8447537757

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Aquesta lliçó posa en relleu la importància històrica del renaixement del dret romà a l’Occident medieval, el qual, juntament amb el dret canònic i l’obra dels juristes bolonyesos, es va difondre per tot Europa amb el nom de ius commune. Molt més que un fenomen estrictament jurídic, va significar un veritable canvi cultural l’ona expansiva del qual es va fer sentir en tots els àmbits de la societat medieval. This lesson highlights the historical importance of the revival of Roman law in the medieval West. Along with canon law and the work of the Bolognese jurists, it spread throughout Europe under the name of ius commune. Much more than a strictly legal phenomenon, it brought about a true cultural change, which affected all areas of medieval society.

The History of the Roman Or Civil Law
The History of the Roman Or Civil Law

Author: Claude Joseph de Ferrière

Publisher: The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd.

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 358

ISBN-13: 1584776633

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Through the influence of Doctors' Commons and the universities the civilians played an important role in the development of English law, especially in the fields of commercial, estate and admiralty law. Despite its value, study of the civil law had entered a moribund phase by the eighteenth century. Several student handbooks attempted to correct this deficiency, and Beaver's translation of Ferriere's treatise is among the best. Accompanied by Duck's learned essay that connects the civil law to the common law, the work is among the first in English to establish the confluence of these legal traditions. Also included is Beaver's translation of The History of the Origine of the French Laws, Translated from the French by J.B. Esq., Shewing, the Analogy of the Laws of the Antient Gauls and Britons. First published anonymously in 1703, it has been attributed to Ferriere, Gabriel Argou and Claude Fleury. Claude Joseph de Ferriere [ca. 1680-ca. 1750] was a well known French jurisconsult, dean of the Faculty of Law in Paris and the author of legal treatises and an important legal dictionary, Dictionnaire de Droit et de Pratique. CONTENTS Chap. I. Of the Different Forms of Government in Rome Chap. II. Of the Roman Law under the Regal Government Chap. III. Of the Free State of Rome in its Infancy, and the Creation of consuls Chap. IV. Of the Creation of Tribunes of the People Chap. V. Of the Decemviri, and Law of the Twelve Tables Chap. VI. Of the Consequences that attended the Law of the Twelve Tables Chap. VII. Of the Laws Chap. VIII. Of the Plebiscita Chap. IX. Of the Interpretation of the Lawyers Chap. X. Of the Prætor's Edicts Chap. XI. Of the Roman Law under the Emperors Chap. XII. The Succession of the Emperors to Justinian Chap. XIII. Of the Emperor Justinian Chap. XIV. Of the Roman Senate Chap. XV. Of the Senatus-Consulta Chap. XVI. Of the Lawyers Answers Chap. XVII. Of the most Celebrated Roman Lawyers Chap. XVIII. Of the Law-Books before Justinian's Time Chap. XIX. Of Justinian's Code Chap. XX. Of the Digests or Pandects Chap. XXI. Of Justinian's Institutes Chap. XXII. Of the Second Edition of Justinian's Code Chap. XXIII. Of Justinian's latter Constitutions, called Novels Chap. XXIV. Of the Law obscrv'd in the East, after Justinian's Death Chap. XXV. Of the Law obscrv'd in the West, after Justinian's Death Chap. XXVI. Of the Use of the Roman Law in France Chap. XXVII. The Decretal Epistle Super-specula explain'd Chap. XXVIII. The Sixty ninth Article of the Ordonnance of Blois explain'd Chap. XXIX. Of the Excellency of the Roman Law Chap. XXX. Of the most celebrated Interpreters of the Roman Law Chap. XXXI. Of the Dispositions requir'd for the Study of the Roman Law Chap. XXXII. Of the Method to be observ'd in studying the Roman Law Chap. XXXIII. Of the Quotations and Abbreviations

Ancient Law
Ancient Law

Author: Sir Henry Sumner Maine

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-07-12

Total Pages: 355

ISBN-13: 1351531727

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Best known as a history of progress, Ancient Law is the enduring work of the 19th-century legal historian Henry Sumner Maine. Even those who have never read Ancient Law may find Maine's famous phrase "from status to contract" familiar. His narrative spans the ancient world, in which individuals were tightly bound by status to traditional groups, and the modern one, in which individuals are viewed as autonomous beings, free to make contracts and form associations with whomever they choose. Maine's dichotomy between status-based societies and contract-based societies is a variation on a theme that has absorbed the social sciences for a century: the distinction between Gemeinschaft (community) and Gesellschaft (society). This theme has been elaborated upon by such eminent scholars as Tonnies, Durkheim, Weber, Simmel, and Parsons. Along with many lesser scholars, they have considered what we gained and what we lost when we left behind a social world held together by communal, primordial bonds, and adopted one based upon impersonal temporary agreements among individuals. Maine wrote Ancient Law to increase knowledge about the internal mechanics of developing societies. He felt a key objective was better understanding of how law develops over time. Failure to understand temporal processes in relation to legal development, he argues, leads to the creation of false dichotomies. The most important of these is the alleged division between the ancient and the modern, which Maine described as an "imaginary barrier" at which modern scholars feel they must stop and go no further. Maine's desire to breach this barrier led him to present this complex and richly nuanced analysis of legal evolution. This book will be of interest to historians, political philosophers, and those interested in the development of law.