The French humanists
The historical and aesthetic interest in classical antiquity during the Renaissance provided a new intellectual context for the study of Roman law: the school of the French humanists.
The method of this school was called mos gallicus, because the school was mainly developed in France as a reaction against the method of the Italian commentators (mos italicus). Legal humanists fostered a new critical attitude toward the ancient legal sources. They promoted the rediscovery and accurate reconstruction of the ancient texts, contextualizing and historicizing them. In doing so, they called into question the authority and practical validity of Roman law. The humanists considered the work of the commentators devastating because the need to apply the law in practice had led them to move away from the original text. According to the humanists, just as Roman law was a product of Roman society and changed with political circumstances, so French law should be a product of French society. In their view, there was no reason to apply Roman law to sixteenth-century France. At the same time, however, they believed that eternal rational principles underlay the Corpus Iuris Civilis.Protestant reformers influenced legal humanism. It is no mere coincidence that many French humanists were in fact French Protestants (Huguenots). Moreover, they expanded legal humanism into the Netherlands. The so-called Dutch Elegant Jurisprudence grew out of the flight to Northern Europe of leading humanists like Hugues Doneau (1527-91) from persecution. The core idea illuminating the humanist method was similar to the core idea of the Reformation: to return to the original source. Just as the Protestant
theologians disputed the authority of the Church Fathers and proposed a pure return to the original source of holy scripture, the legal humanists disputed the authority of glossators and commentators and proposed a return to the primary source, the Corpus Iuris Civilis, insofar as it revealed the writings of the classical Roman jurists.
Prominent legal humanists included Lelio Torelli and Antonio Agustin, who produced an edition of the Digest in 1553 based on the Florentine manuscript.The Italian jurist Andrea Alciato can be considered the leader and founder of legal humanism, and the French jurist Jacques Cujas was the preeminent humanist. Andrea Alciato (1492-1550) was born in Alzate, near Milan, studied law in Pavia, under the Bartolist Giasone del Maino and Filippo Decio, and taught at Avignon, Bourges, and Pavia. During his stay in Bourges, the law school became one of the most famous in Europe. He wrote, among other important works, a commentary on the three last books in Justinian’s Code (Annotationes in tres libros Codicis), as well as some essays on law and interpretation (Paradoxa, Parerga iuris) that were considered leading representative works of the new legal humanism. Alciato’s most famous work is Emblemata (1531), a collection of short Latin verses that attained great popularity in Europe and created a new literary genre.
Jacques Cujas (Cuiacius, 1522-90) was born in Toulouse, where he studied law. After teaching Roman law in Cahors, in 1555 he moved to Bourges to succeed Francois Baudoin (1520-73), who was forced to leave France for religious reasons. Cujas refused to take any part in the French religious wars between Catholics and Huguenots. “This has nothing to do with the praetorian edict” was Cujas’s ordinary answer to those who asked him about religious matters. His great rivals at Bourges, the famous jurists Hugue Doneau (1527-91) and Francois Hotman (1524-90), left Bourges after the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew’s Day in 1573.
Cujas’s most important work was Observationes et emendationes, a commentary on the Corpus Iuris Civilis. His interest was far from limited to Justinian’s Compilation, however. He recovered and published a part of the Theodosian Code, and he procured the manuscript of the Basilika. He also worked on feudal law and canon law. In his Paratitla, summaries of the Corpus Iuris Civilis, he condensed in maxims and rules the most relevant legal principles and provided precise and clear definitions.
In 1577, Cujas’s Opera Omnia were published in Paris, collected and edited by Cujas himself. He died in Bourges on October 4, 1590.Sometimes, and paradoxically, the school of humanists fell into a dogmatic attitude, condemning as “Tribonianism” all kinds of historical development outside the classical sources. Humanists established a strict (and artificial) wall of separation between historical and practical interests. This explained why the humanist school remained a scholarly project in the hands of sophisticated and learned scholars without strong influence on legal practice. Neither in Italy nor in Germany was legal humanism a success. An Italian Protestant, Alberico Gentili (1552-1608), who moved from Italy to England
The revival of Roman law 97 for religious reasons, wrote six dialogues (De iuris interpretibus dialogi sex) against the high theoretical approach of the French humanists and in defense of a Bartolist and more practical approach.
More on the topic The French humanists:
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- POTHIER AND THE FRENCH CIVIL CODE
- The position in modern French and German law
- FRENCH FRANCS AND BELGIAN FRANCS (INTRODUCTION)
- If a Frenchman and a Belgian meet in Hamburg, and the one sells his car to the other for 2 000 francs, the question arises as to what currency the parties have intended: 2 000 French or Belgian francs.
- HUMANISM AND THE CIVIL LAW
- THE CIVIL LAW BECOMES A SCIENCE
- Conventio, pactum and contractus under the ius commune
- The Codification of Civil Law in France
- Geographic Distribution of the Civil Law
- THE RECEPTION IN GERMANY
- Roman-Dutch law; modern German law