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Legal humanists


The legal humanists were a group of scholars of Roman law, which arose in 16th century France (Bourges) as a reaction against the Commentators. They had a general disdain for the Middle Ages and felt nothing good could come from then. They also had a great love of antiquarianism and were greatly concerned with the authority and accuracy of the Corpus Iuris Civilis. Thus, they described the work of the glossators and commentators as a malignant cancer on the text. They particularly disliked the commentators because in their attempt to apply law in practice, they had moved further and further away from the texts.

This was the time of the Renaissance in Europe, where people sought a new birth of society. They believed this would come through a return to the eternal principles underlying classical society. The religious reformers sought a return to the pure Word. In law, the humanists were a parallel movement, seeking a return to classical Roman law. This involved purifying the texts. The humanists had great confidence in the mind and so originally this was done through a conjectural knowledge of antiquity. However, Cujaccius recognized the importance of studying the best and most original text, and thus used the Florentine manuscript. This enabled a better study of the interpolations of the text. However, as more and more interpolations were revealed, the quasi-Biblical status of the texts was undermined, which undermined the work of the humanists.

Since the humanists were primarily concerned with a return to classical society, they were not solely interested in the law, but instead in the historical context. Some humanists placed little emphasis on the law except in respect to what it revealed about the Roman society, for example, Alicus. Pure law was thus given a monumental status. However, this resulted in a move away from practical application of the text. It was recognized that Roman law was the product of Roman society. This undermined the humanist movement as at the same time as arguing that Roman law was perfect for today’s society, they revealed it was a product of Roman society. The logical conclusion of this was that French law should be a product of French society. The humanists, for example, Donellus, presumed that Roman law was rational and so tried to find an underlying rational structure. They distinguished sharply between questions of procedure (the means of obtaining an answer) and questions of substantive law (what is due).


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