Emil Seckel and his Pupils

The only other scholar whose long-term influence may possibly be compared to that of Ludwig Mitteis is Emil Seckel. Seckel (1864-1924, professor in Berlin)^[79] is well known today to Roman lawyers by virtue of his revision of H.

Heumann's Handlexikon zu den Quellen des romischen Rechts (Dictionary on the Sources of Roman Law [1907; today the 10th edn., 1958, is used]). To private law scholarship he contributed 'one of the most brilliant studies of which modern private law doctrine can boast'.^[80] Above all, however, and in his own time, he was regarded as the preeminent expert in medieval law. He was one of the first to see that 'the ius commune of the 19th century, fatally reapproximated to Justinian's law, had been thoroughly worked through' and that, therefore, a particularly important task for contemporary legal historians consisted in exploring 'the history of the ius commune in its continuous development from Justinian to the BGB'.^[81] In view of the great difficulties and the enormous scope of this task Seckel's pupil Erich Genzmer proposed the setting up of a research institute^[82] ^{^[83] which was eventually founded by Genzmer's pupil Helmut Coing (Max-Planck-Institute for European Legal History). Through his institute, Coing was able to arrange the publication of a comprehensive reference work on the sources and literature on the history of European private law (Handbuch der Quellen und Literatur der neueren europäischen Privatrechtsgeschichte (8 vols., so far incomplete)); and in his treatise on Europäisches Privatrecht (European Private Law, 2 vols., 1985, 1989) he gave the first comprehensive overview of the history of private law doctrine. Another of Seckel's prominent pupils, Fritz Schulz, concentrated on modern legal doctrine (he 'discovered' the enrichment action based on an encroachment [Eingriffskondiktion]¹⁴³) and classical Roman law. Schulz (1879-1957, professor in Innsbruck, Kiel, Gottingen, Bonn, and Berlin, from 1939 in exile in Oxford)^[84] wrote the first history of Roman legal science and established the hypothesis (subsequently further developed by Wieacker) of pre-Justinianic interference with the classical legal writings (in early post- classical West Roman literature).
Also a pupil of Seckel was Ernst Levy (1881-1968, professor in Frankfurt am Main, Freiburg/Br., and Heidelberg, 1936 emigration to the United States).^[85] Fie, essentially, did for West Roman law what Mitteis had done for the East Roman provinces: he discovered a 'vulgar' law which had evolved in the post-classical period, largely independent of the developments in the East.^[86] Thus, he opened up 'a previously unknown world'^[87] between Roman law of antiquity and medieval 'Germanic' law, i.e. at the intersection between the areas of scholarship in Roman law and Germanic legal history.^[88] Levy's pupil Wolfgang Kunkel,examined the Herkunft und soziale Stellung der romischen Juristen (Origin and Social Status of Roman Lawyers, 1952; 2nd edn., 1967) and turned his attention to Roman criminal and constitutional law. Both areas had, so far, still been dominated by Theodor Mommsen's work which, in turn, was characterized by the systematic approach of nineteenth-century vintage.¹⁵"¹ In Emil Seckel's case, too, it is remarkable how many contemporary legal historians belong to his academic descendants, among them particularly the pupils of Kunkel, Coing, and Werner Flume. 4.}

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Source: Zimmermann R.. Roman law, Contemporary law, European law. Oxford University Press,2004. — 113 p.. 2004

Emil Seckel and his Pupils

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