English Law and the Renaissance / The Rede Lecture for 1901

by Frederic William Maitland

The French school.

[9] The greatest names appear to be those of François Duaren or more correctly Le Douarin (1509-1559), Jacques Cujas (1522-1590), Hugues Doneau (Donellus, 1527-1592), François Baudouin (Balduinus, 1520-1573), François Hotman (1524-1591), Denis Godefroy (1549-1622), Jacques Godefroy (1587-1652). Besides these there is Charles Du Moulin (Molinaeus, 1500-1566) whose chief work, however, was done upon French customary law, and who in the study of Roman law represents a conservative tradition. (Esmein, Histoire du droit français, ed. 2, p. 776.) Dareste (Essai sur François Hotman, p. 2) marks the five years 1546-1551 as those in which ‘nos quatre grands docteurs du seizième siècle’ (Hotman, Baudouin, Cujas, Doneau) entered on their careers.

New life of the Corpus Juris.

[10] Viollet, Droit civil français, p. 25: ‘C’est le mouvement scientifique de la Renaissance qui, semblable à un courant d’électricité, donne ainsi au vieux droit romain une vie nouvelle. Son autorité s’accroît par l’action d’une science, pleine de jeunesse et d’ardeur, d’une science qui, comme toutes les autres branches de l’activité humaine, s’épanouit et renaît.’ Flach, in Nouvelle revue historique de droit, vol. VII., p. 222: ‘En France Cujas porte à son apogée le renom de l’école nouvelle. Quelle autre préoccupation cette école pouvait-elle avoir que de faire revivre le véritable droit de la Rome ancienne, celui que la pratique avait touché de son souffle impur, celui qu’elle avait corrompu?’

Reginald Pole and the Reception.

[11] Starkey’s England, Early English Text Society, 1878, pp. 192 ff.; and see Letters and Papers, Henry VIII., vol. VIII., pp. 81-84, and Ibid. vol. XII., pt. 1, pp. xxxii-xxxiv. Thomas Starkey was employed in the endeavour to win Reginald Pole to King Henry’s side in the matter of the divorce from Catherine and the consequent breach with Rome. The negotiation failed, but Starkey took the opportunity of laying before Henry a dialogue which he (Starkey) had composed. The interlocutors in this dialogue were Pole and the well-known scholar Thomas Lupset, and Pole was represented as expounding his opinions touching political and ecclesiastical affairs. How far at all points Starkey fairly represented Pole’s views may be doubted. Still we have respectable evidence that Pole had talked in the strain of the following passage, and at any rate Starkey thought that in King Henry’s eyes he was befriending Pole by making him speak thus.

Defects of English law.

‘Thys ys no dowte but that our law and ordur thereof ys over-confuse. Hyt ys infynyte, and without ordur or end. Ther ys no stabyl grounde therin, nor sure stay; but euery one that can coloure reson makyth a stope to the best law that ys before tyme deuysyd. The suttylty of one sergeant schal enerte [enerve?] and destroy al the jugementys of many wyse men before tyme receyuyd. There is no stabyl ground in our commyn law to leyne vnto. The jugementys of yerys [i.e. the Year Books] be infynyte and ful of much controuersy; and, besyde that, of smal authoryte. The jugys are not bounden, as I vnderstond, to folow them as a rule, but aftur theyr owne lyberty they haue authoryte to juge, accordyng as they are instructyd by the sergeantys, and as the cyrcumstance of the cause doth them moue. And thys makyth jugementys and processe of our law to be wythout end and infynyte; thys causyth sutys to be long in decysyon. Therefor, to remedy thys mater groundly, hyt were necessary, in our law, to vse the same remedy that Justynyan dyd in the law of the Romaynys, to bryng thys infynyte processe to certayn endys, to cut away thys long lawys, and, by the wysdome of some polytyke and wyse men, instytute a few and bettur lawys and ordynancys. The statutys of kyngys, also, be ouer-many, euen as the constytutyonys of the emperorys were. Wherefor I wold wysch that al thes lawys schold be brought into some smal nombur, and to be wryten also in our mother tong, or els put into the Latyn, to cause them that studye the cyuyle law of our reame fyrst to begyn of the Latyn tong, wherin they myght also afturward lerne many thyngys to helpe thys professyon. Thys ys one thyng necessary to the educatyon of the nobylyte, the wych only I wold schold be admyttyd to the study of thys law. Then they myght study also the lawys of the Romaynys, where they schold see al causys and controuersys decyded by rulys more conuenyent to the ordur of nature then they be in thys barbarouse tong and Old French, wych now seruyth to no purpos els. Thys, Mastur Lvpset, ys a grete blote in our pollycy, to see al our law and commyn dyscyplyne wryten in thys barbarouse langage, wych, aftur when the youth hath lernyd, seruyth them to no purpos at al; and, besyde that, to say the truth, many of the lawys themselfys be also barbarouse and tyrannycal, as you haue before hard. [Here follows an attack on primogeniture and entail.]

Reception of the civil law recommended.