True intention and justifiable reliance

Modern German law tends to follow a more objective, or normative, approach; the emphasis is not so much on what a party may have meant, but on how a reasonable man would have understood his declaration.⁹³ There is no room for an inquiry into the "true intention" of the parties if the justifiable reliance of the addressee deserves protection.

^SK Cf. also Coing, p. 411. On the nature of the ius commune in the 16th. 17th and 18th centuries, not as professorial law characterized by impractical abstractions, deductive reasoning and concept jurisprudence, but asjudicial law, jurisprudentia forensis, developing through lawyers' interpretation andjudicial opinions, cf. e.g. Gino Gorla, Luigi Moccia, "A 'Revisiting' of the Comparison between 'Continental Law' and 'English Law' (16th—19th century)", (1981) 2 journal of Legal History 143 sqq. Protagonists of the law in action were judges and legal counsel, lawyers such as Molinaeus and Domat, Grotius and Bynkershoek, Huber and Sande, Carpzov and Mevius; the method of their decisions was largely casuistic; and a particularly important part of legal literature written or compiled during this time was forensic in character.

® Cf. supra, p. 625.

⁵⁰ D. 50, 16, 219.

⁹ Cf. e.g. Pothier, Trails des obligations, n. 91.

^$ Donellus, "Ad. Tit. Dig. de Rebus dubii", Ad L. Ubicst 21., in: Opera Omnia, vol. XI (Lucae, 1767), col. 99.

⁸³ Cf. e.g. Flume, AT, pp. 51 sqq., 307 sqq.; Ludentz.

"Sed quia interni actus per sc spectabiles non sunt,... ipsa dicante naturali ratione jus est ei cui quid promissum est promissorem cogere ad id quod recta interpretatio suggerit. "^y7

But how is this recta interpretatio to be established? "Si nulla sit conjectura quae ducat alio, verba intelligenda sunt ex proprietate, non Grammatica quae est ex origine, sed populari ex usu." ^{[3298] [3299]}

3.