Introduction

The relationship between legal change and social change is much contested in modern legal scholarship. One of the most interesting and important contribu­tions to this debate has been that of Alan Watson.

Watson has thereby laid down a major challenge for legal historians, com­parative lawyers, and sociologists of law. It is a challenge that has rarely been taken up. The current collection of essays accordingly aims to assess aspects of Watson’s theories through detailed considerations of areas in which he has interested himself.

It is no coincidence that Watson’s scholarly career was founded on the study of Roman law. Roman law was the original legal science and remains the fun­damental legal discipline. It requires close application to texts, and attention to the details not only of what they say but also to what they do not say. Ability to consider the lost text behind the text and the significance of particular verbal formulations is of primary significance. After his doctoral thesis,^[3] Watson’s main scholarly focus was the law of the later Republic.^[4] This is of primary importance in considering the further development of his oeuvre. Reconstruction of the law of this era - and, even more so, that of the earlier period, in which he was also interested^[5] - entailed extensive consideration of non-legal texts. This very much raised and problematised the question of the relationship between the legal and the non-legal in the context of the ancient world. Many of the essays that follow deal with Roman law, in which this perennial problem constantly arises. Grouped after them are the contributions on biblical law and Chinese law in which the same issues have to be considered. Indeed Watson himself has recently brought the skills he honed in Roman law to the study of law in the gospels.^[6] The essays here range over a variety of aspects of Roman law, from traditional topics such as traditio to legal issues revealed in poetry; from criminal law to Roman legal theory. Some studies indeed focus on issues of translation, reflecting Watson’s edition of the Digest - that primary store-house of legal wisdom - in English.^[7] Close reading of texts, contextualization, and illumination of the whole through focus on a single telling fact mark these studies.

After the publication of Legal Transplants, Watson explored his ideas on law and social change in a variety of both comparative and historical studies. A major focus in these was the reception of Roman and other laws in Europe and beyond. This has involved him in a variety of debates, notably over slavery in the Americas,^[8] and over the structure of legal writings and their differing gen­res.^[9] The remaining essays reflect these themes, some consciously taking issue and engaging with Watson’s scholarship. They range from a consideration of the classification of crimes and the history of adoption in comparative and his­torical perspective, both general and particular, to the changing nature of the law of sanctuary and the uncertainty of printed texts. Some focus on topics such as seventeenth century Germany, or the procedure of mediaeval canon law; others explore the history of the legal profession or fundamental issues such as restitution. Unsurprisingly, since Watson was born and educated in Scotland, qualified there, taught there for fifteen years, and holds a Scottish honorary doc­torate, a significant number of these essays are concerned with law in Scotland

Watson has always been interested in early legal systems and the interpreta­tion of the scant evidence they have left behind,^[10] perhaps - despite Watson’s disbelief in the necessary link between law and society - because such systems reveal something fundamental and essential about law and society that can otherwise elude us, perhaps because they offer scope to the disciplined imagina­tion. While it is therefore fitting that this book dedicated to him by his friends and pupils should cover three areas of his interests, it must be noted that Watson may be a Scottish lad o’ pairts, but there are far more of those than three.