Intro_continental_legal_science [Unlocked]
.pdfNational Research University «Higher School of Economics»
Law Faculty
Department of Legal Theory and Comparative Law
Dmitry Poldnikov
Historical Introduction to Continental Legal Science
Reader
Moscow – 2014
Poldnikov D.Yu. Historical Introduction to Continental Legal Science. Reader. Moscow: Higher School of Economics Press, 2014. – 280 p.
Annotation
This course aims at introducing the distinctive features of the continental legal science in its historical development. The course offers an overview of philosophical and methodological foundations of the leading European law schools and surveys the principal sources and literature of the law from the establishment of the first universities in Northern Italy in the 12th century until the crisis of legal positivism in the early 20th century.
In focus are the schools of Western Europe, that is the Glossators, the Commentators, the Canonists, legal humanists, learned jurists of the realy modern Germany, France and Spain, advocates of the modern natural law, German historical school, the Pandectists, and Russian dogmatic jurists before 1917. The emphasis is made on such topics as reception of Roman law, development of ius commune by university professors and legal scholars, its influence upon national jurisprudence in France, Italy, Spain, and Germany, the process of ‘scientification’ of law in Germany, as well as the European origins of legal science in Russia.
This reader contains the syllabus of the course, excerpts from the essential readings together with suggested bibliography, the essential glossary, and questions.
©National Research University «Higher School of Economics», 2014
©Dmitry Poldnikov, 2014
1
CONTENTS |
|
Topic 1. Legal science in continental legal history: the settings. ................. |
7 |
Topic outline ................................................................................................ |
7 |
Basic Terminology: legal science, scholarship, jurisprudence, or |
|
doctrine. ....................................................................................................... |
7 |
Definitions of Legal Science: as Doctrine and as Community............... |
10 |
Legal Science as Continental Phenomenon vs English Judge-Made |
|
Law. ............................................................................................................ |
16 |
Significance of Legal Science through Its Influence on Lawmaking, |
|
Administration of Justice, and Education............................................... |
22 |
Main Legal Schools in European History. .............................................. |
30 |
Essential Readings..................................................................................... |
32 |
Supplementary readings........................................................................... |
32 |
Essential Glossary ..................................................................................... |
33 |
Questions.................................................................................................... |
33 |
Topic 2. Emergence of legal science in Western Europe: glossators and |
|
canonists in the 12th to 13th century ........................................................... |
35 |
Topic outline .............................................................................................. |
35 |
Customary Law in Europe before Legal Science ................................... |
36 |
Revival of Roman Law Studies in the Middle Ages: Context and |
|
Causes......................................................................................................... |
39 |
School of Glossators .................................................................................. |
45 |
Outline of its development ................................................................... |
45 |
Analysed sources of Roman law .......................................................... |
46 |
Methods of the Glossators .................................................................... |
48 |
Literature of the Glossators ................................................................. |
54 |
Significance of the legal science of the glossators............................... |
56 |
School of Canonists ................................................................................... |
58 |
The influence of Roman law on Canon Law and the Decretum of |
|
Gratian................................................................................................... |
58 |
School of the Decretists............................................................................. |
61 |
Methods of the Decretists. .................................................................... |
62 |
Literature of the Decretists. ................................................................. |
63 |
Dawn of Ius Commune......................................................................... |
63 |
Common Features of Legal Science of the Glossators and the |
|
Decretists. .............................................................................................. |
63 |
Idea of ius commune.................................................................................. |
65 |
Importance of Universities. ...................................................................... |
68 |
2
Essential Readings..................................................................................... |
|
72 |
Supplementary readings........................................................................... |
|
72 |
Essential Glossary ..................................................................................... |
|
73 |
Questions.................................................................................................... |
|
74 |
Topic 3. Foundations of legal science of ius commune in the 14th to 15th |
||
century: mos italicus ...................................................................................... |
|
75 |
Topic outline .............................................................................................. |
|
75 |
Western Europe after the Glossators ...................................................... |
76 |
|
The School of commentators and mos italicus........................................ |
82 |
|
Introducing the school. ......................................................................... |
|
82 |
The analysed sources of law ................................................................. |
|
84 |
The methods .......................................................................................... |
|
84 |
The restrictions of the methodology used by the commentators. ..... |
87 |
|
Crooked ways to interpret the sources................................................ |
88 |
|
The literature produced by the school ................................................ |
90 |
|
The significance of the legal science of the commentators. ............... |
92 |
|
The School of Decretalists. ....................................................................... |
|
94 |
The School of decretalists and study of the new sources of the canon |
||
law. ......................................................................................................... |
|
94 |
The methods .......................................................................................... |
|
95 |
The literature produced by the school ................................................ |
95 |
|
The Results: ius commune Europaeum.................................................... |
96 |
|
The mutual influence of Roman law and canon law.......................... |
96 |
|
Ius commune: Civil Law and Canon Law............................................... |
97 |
|
Learning of ius commune and the university.......................................... |
99 |
|
The Role of Learned Jurists in the 14th century.................................. |
102 |
|
The Bartolists........................................................................................... |
|
104 |
Essential Readings................................................................................... |
|
105 |
Supplementary readings......................................................................... |
|
105 |
Essential Glossary ................................................................................... |
|
106 |
Questions.................................................................................................. |
|
106 |
Topic 4. Expansion of ius commune in Western Europe in the 13th to 15th |
||
century.......................................................................................................... |
|
108 |
Topic outline ............................................................................................ |
|
108 |
Expansion of the ius commune in the West........................................... |
109 |
|
The concept of Reception of Roman Law. ............................................ |
109 |
|
Causes of the expansion of the ius commune. ....................................... |
111 |
|
How the ius commune shaped |
positive law................................................ |
|
3
Hierarchy of the Sources of Positive Law. ............................................ |
119 |
The geography of the expansion of the ius commune........................... |
120 |
Essential Readings................................................................................... |
122 |
Supplementary readings......................................................................... |
123 |
Essential Glossary ................................................................................... |
123 |
Questions.................................................................................................. |
123 |
Topic 5. School of French humanists in the 16th century (mos gallicus)125 |
|
Topic outline ............................................................................................ |
125 |
The Humanist Movement and Legal Science. ...................................... |
125 |
Brief Description................................................................................. |
125 |
French school of Mos Gallicus. .......................................................... |
127 |
Critique of Mos Italicus. ..................................................................... |
129 |
Sources of Law. ................................................................................... |
130 |
Methods. .............................................................................................. |
131 |
Literature of the Humanist School.................................................... |
132 |
Significance of the Humanist School. ................................................ |
133 |
Persistence of mos italicus in Legal Practice..................................... |
135 |
Essential Readings................................................................................... |
137 |
Supplementary readings......................................................................... |
137 |
Essential Glossary ................................................................................... |
138 |
Questions.................................................................................................. |
138 |
Topic 6. Rise of national legal science in Western Europe in the 16th to |
|
17th centuries............................................................................................... |
139 |
Topic outline ............................................................................................ |
139 |
Developments in Italy: the Bartolists. ................................................... |
142 |
Developments in France: the jurisprudence of the Parlements........... |
145 |
Developments in Spain: the Second Scholasticism. .............................. |
151 |
Developments in Germany: usus modernus Pandectarum................... |
154 |
Developments in The Netherlands: the Roman-Dutch law and the |
|
‘Elegant School’....................................................................................... |
158 |
Towards the Great Codifications of the 18th century.......................... |
159 |
Essential Readings................................................................................... |
160 |
Supplementary readings......................................................................... |
160 |
Essential Glossary ................................................................................... |
161 |
Topic 7. School of natural law in the 17th to 18th century ...................... |
162 |
Topic outline ............................................................................................ |
162 |
Modern Natural Law and Law of Reason in Context.......................... |
163 |
History of the School............................................................................... |
164 |
4
Significance of Modern Natural Law. ................................................... |
170 |
|
Road towards Codification..................................................................... |
|
173 |
Essential Readings................................................................................... |
|
174 |
Supplementary readings......................................................................... |
|
175 |
Essential Glossary ................................................................................... |
|
175 |
Questions.................................................................................................. |
|
176 |
Topic 8. German Historical School in the 19th century ........................... |
177 |
|
Topic outline ............................................................................................ |
|
177 |
History of the School............................................................................... |
|
178 |
Analysed Sources of Law........................................................................ |
|
182 |
Methods.................................................................................................... |
|
183 |
Critique of the Historical School............................................................ |
|
184 |
Significance of the Historical School ..................................................... |
185 |
|
Essential Readings................................................................................... |
|
186 |
Supplementary readings......................................................................... |
|
186 |
Essential Glossary ................................................................................... |
|
187 |
Questions.................................................................................................. |
|
188 |
Topic 9. Legal positivism in Europe in the 19th century ......................... |
189 |
|
Topic outline ............................................................................................ |
|
189 |
Dawn of Legal Positivism ....................................................................... |
|
190 |
Legal Positivism in France ..................................................................... |
|
191 |
School of Exegesis.................................................................................... |
|
192 |
Representatives of the School ............................................................ |
|
195 |
Basic Assumptions and Methods of the School of Exegesis................. |
197 |
|
Criticism of the School of Exegesis ........................................................ |
|
198 |
Legal Positivism in Germany ................................................................. |
|
199 |
The Pandectists........................................................................................ |
|
200 |
Representatives of Pandectism............................................................... |
|
203 |
Criticism of Pandectists. ......................................................................... |
|
204 |
Lasting Heritage of Legal Positivism..................................................... |
207 |
|
Essential Readings................................................................................... |
|
209 |
Supplementary readings......................................................................... |
|
209 |
Essential Glossary ................................................................................... |
|
209 |
Questions.................................................................................................. |
|
210 |
Topic 10. Emergence of Russian legal science under European influence |
||
....................................................................................................................... |
|
211 |
Topic outline ............................................................................................ |
|
211 |
French and German spheres of |
influence in Europe................................... |
|
5
Introductory notes................................................................................... |
214 |
Russian law and other legal systems...................................................... |
214 |
Influences of foreign law on Russian law. ............................................. |
215 |
Beginning of legal science in Russia....................................................... |
216 |
Russian jurisprudential Roots. .............................................................. |
216 |
The fate of natural law in the Imperial Russia. .................................... |
217 |
Developments of Russian law under Nicholas I.................................... |
217 |
Development in the first half of the 19th century................................. |
218 |
‘Zakonovedenije’ instead of legal science. ............................................. |
220 |
The influence of Savigny’s historical school of law. ............................. |
221 |
The Great Reforms in Russia................................................................. |
223 |
Necessity to develop Civil Law Doctrine in Russia after the “Great |
|
Reforms” of the 1860s............................................................................. |
223 |
The leading textbooks on Russian civil law. ......................................... |
225 |
Dmitry Meyer and the foundations of Russian legal science............... |
225 |
Legal science and dogma in Russia........................................................ |
229 |
Legal science of Konstantin Pobedonostsev.......................................... |
231 |
Contribution of Shershenevich. ............................................................. |
235 |
Opposition to German (or Western) influence. .................................... |
235 |
Discussion about codification of Russian civil law. .............................. |
237 |
Sociological legal thought in Russia....................................................... |
237 |
Predominance of dogmatic science in Russia. ...................................... |
240 |
Interaction between legal science and legal practice............................ |
241 |
Denial of the ‘bourgeois legal science’ in Russia after the October |
|
revolution of 1917.................................................................................... |
245 |
Legal Nihilism in Russia. ........................................................................ |
246 |
Essential Readings................................................................................... |
248 |
Supplementary readings......................................................................... |
248 |
Essential Glossary ................................................................................... |
249 |
Questions.................................................................................................. |
250 |
Appendix ...................................................................................................... |
251 |
Unified Essential Glossary .......................................................................... |
251 |
6
Topic 1. Legal science in continental legal history: the settings.
Topic outline
Introductory notes on the course, its aims, scope and structure.
Features of contemporary notion of legal science in continental Europe.
Significance of legal science on the Continent nowadays.
Role of legal science in the continental legal history from the 12th century onwards. Main stages of its development. Western influence on Russian legal science in the 18th to early 19th century.
Notion of ‘legal school’. Ideological and methodological foundations of continental legal schools. Legal doctrine. Major legal schools in European legal history and their relation to the stages of the development of legal orders in Europe.
Excerpts from Readings
Basic Terminology: legal science, scholarship, jurisprudence, or doctrine.
No exact term to describe the professional field of academic study of law in English because there had been no such activity in this country.
Legal science, jurisprudence, or doctrine can be used as synonyms in the academic literature.
Is “Legal Science’ the best term?
Oxford Dictionary of English 2nd ed. = New Oxford American Dictionary.
“Science –– the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.” <...> “a systematically organized body of knowledge on a particular subject”.
7
However, law is not part of the physical and natural world. It belongs to human culture. Hence, it is connected with humanities:
“Humanities –– learning concerned with human culture, especially literature, history, art, music, and philosophy.”
Other similar terms in legal dictionaries and academic literature.
“Jurisprudence (from Latin iurisprudentia, or knowledge of law) – the theory or philosophy of law”.
Black’s Law Dictionary, 9th ed. by Brian A. Garner, p. 932.
Jurisprudence 1. Originally (in the 18th century), the study of the first principles of the law of nature, the civil law, and the law of nations.—Also termed jurisprudentia naturalis. 2. More modernly, the study of the general or fundamental elements of a particular legal system, as opposed to its practical and concrete details. 3. The study of legal systems in general. 4. Judicial precedents considered collectively. 5. In German literature, the whole of legal knowledge. 6. A system, body, or division of law. 7. = Caselaw.
“Jurisprudence addresses the questions about law that an intelligent layperson of speculative bent – not a lawyer – might think particularly interesting. What is law? . . . Where does law come from? .
. . Is law an autonomous discipline? . . . What is the purpose of law? . . .
Is law a science, a humanity, or neither? . . . A practicing lawyer or a judge is apt to think questions of this sort at best irrelevant to what he does, at worst naive, impractical, even childlike (how high is up?).” (Posner R.A. The Problems of Jurisprudence, p. 1.)
However,
jurisprudence might mean judicial decisions in French law (Lopez P. Comparative Law in a Changing World, p. 68)
Legal doctrine.
8
Legal science in the sense of legal doctrine
Lopez P. Comparative Law in a Changing World, p. 67.
“Doctrine, a term in use in French law since the 19th century, signifies:
... the body of opinions on legal matters expressed in books and articles
... <and> is also used to characterise collectively the persons engaged in this analysis, synthesis and evaluation of legal source material, members of the legal professions who devote substantial attention to scholarly work and acquire reputations as authorities. <David and de Vries (1958) p 122.>”
Braun A. Professors and judges in Italy: it takes two to tango, p.
680.
In fact, since the end of the 19th century—in Italy as well as in France—the expression ‘legal doctrine’ refers to legal scholars as a collective entity. This is due to the fact that legal scholars started perceiving themselves as an entity which was independent from the other legal actors, and which took upon itself the right to interpret and explain statutes as well as case law. Academics thus regarded themselves as an entity which could act as a source of law.
Jestaz Ph., Jamin Ch., The entity of French doctrine: some thoughts on the community of French legal writers, p. 415.
'Doctrine', from the legal point of view, is often understood, in France at least, as a collection of works. For example, Le Petit Robert <a trusted French dictionary> defines it as 'the entirety of legal works whose aim is to expound or interpret the law (as opposed to legislation and judicial decisions)'. This definition is not erroneous, but it only captures one aspect of the matter…
In a second meaning, which seems to be particular to France and certain other countries in continental Europe, doctrine is presented as an entity, since jurists commonly say that doctrine agrees with or is critical of such and such a solution, proposes such and such a reform, etc. It would hardly be an exaggeration to argue that doctrine is understood as
9