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An Empire of Light? Learning and Lawmaking in the History of German Law

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 July 2005

Stefan Vogenauer
Stefan Vogenauer*
Affiliation:
University of Oxford
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Extract

John Austin, having spent the winter term of 1827/28 in the idyllic and peaceful Rhenanian university town of Bonn, far away from the bustle of London and the irritating failures he had suffered at the chancery bar, was unrivalled in his admiration for the modern version of Roman law as it had been interpreted, refined and further developed by the German scholars of his time. It was, he exclaimed, “greatly and palpably superior, considered as a whole, to the law of England. Turning from the study of the English to the study of the Roman law, you escape from the empire of chaos and darkness, to a world that seems by comparison, the region of order and light”. How he longed to be as acknowledged and as influential as one of the great expositors of that law. “I was born out of time and place”, he is reported to have lamented, “I ought to have been a schoolman of the twelfth century—or a German professor”. His desire was rather understandable, given that the nineteenth century English law professors regarded themselves as “a feeble folk.

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The Cambridge Law Journal , Volume 64 , Issue 2 , 23 July 2005 , pp. 481 - 500
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Copyright © The Cambridge Law Journal and Contributors 2005

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Footnotes

Director of the Oxford Institute of European and Comparative Law. This is the first part of an enlarged and annotated version of a paper presented at an All Souls Symposion on “Learning and Lawmaking” in January 2003, organised by the late Peter Birks. I am grateful to my South African colleagues Anton Fagan, Jacques du Plessis and David Yuill for their valuable comments on parts of this paper.

References

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2 Schwarz, A.B., “John Austin and the German Jurisprudence of his Time” (1934) 1 Politica 178, 183Google Scholar.

3 T.E. Holland in a letter to O.W. Holmes, Eight November 1891, cited from Cosgrove, R.A. “Sir Thomas Erskine Holland and the Treatise Tradition: The Elements of Jurisprudence Revisited” in Bush, J.A. and Wijffels, A. (eds.), Learning the Law: Law Teaching and the Transmission of Law in England 1150-1900 (London 1999), pp. 397, 401Google Scholar.

4 Rüttimann, J., Der englische Civil-Prozeß mit besonderer Berücksichtigung des Verfahrens der Westminster Rechtshöfe (Leipzig 1851), p. viiiGoogle Scholar.

5 Sacco, R., “Legal Formants: a Dynamic Approach to Comparative Law (Installment [sic] I of II)” (1991) 39 American Journal of Comparative Law 1, 22Google Scholar.

6 As to the concept of “legal style” see Zweigert, K. and Kötz, H., An Introduction to Comparative Law, 3rd ed. (Oxford 1998), pp. 67–72Google Scholar who do not consider the interplay mentioned in the text to be a distinctive stylistic trait, but amply deal with it in the contexts of the stylistic elements “historical background”, “mode of legal thinking” and “sources of law”, cf. pp. 129-131, 193-194.

7 The latter view is emphatically put forward by van Caenegem, R.C., Judges, Legislators and Professors: Chapters in European Legal History (Cambridge 1987), pp. 67–69, 84-86, 108-109Google Scholar.

8 Shils, E. and Rheinstein, M. (trsl.), Max Weber on Law in Economy and Society (Cambridge Mass. 1954), pp. 52, 199-223Google Scholar.

9 Dawson, J.P. The Oracles of the Law (Ann Arbor 1968)Google Scholar, taking up an expression used for the judges by Blackstone, W. Commentaries on the Laws of England, vol. I (Oxford 1765), p. 69Google Scholar.

10 Sacco, R., “Legal Formants: a Dynamic Approach to Comparative Law (Installment [sic] II of II)” (1991) 39 American Journal of Comparative Law 343, 348Google Scholar; Atiyah, P.S. and Summers, R.S., Form and Substance in Anglo-American Law (Oxford 1987), pp. 384–407Google Scholar.

11 Dawson, Oracles pp. 339, 348-349, 375; Zweigert and Kötz, Introduction, pp. 129, 132.

12 See, e.g., van Caenegem, Judges, p. 53: “No contrast could be greater”, and p. 65: “How can this enormous difference between England and Germany be explained? Why this extreme contrast of judge-made law on one side of the North Sea and professor-made law on the other”

13 Mohnhaupt, H., “Rechtseinheit durch Rechtsprechung? Zu Theorie und Praxis gerichtlicher Regelbildung im 19. Jahrhundert in Deutschland” in Peterson, C. (ed.), Juristische Theoriebildung und rechtliche Einheit (Lund 1993), pp. 117, 127Google Scholar.

14 For accounts of this story see Wieacker, F., A History of Private Law in Europe (Oxford 1995), pp. 67–155Google Scholar; Zweigert and Kötz, Introduction, pp. 133-135.

15 For this section see P. Koschaker, Europa und das römische Recht, 4th ed. (München 1966), pp. 119, 224-228, 241-242; Wieacker, History, pp. 67-195, notably pp. 94, 98, 133, 136-139; Dawson, Oracles, pp. 148-262, notably pp. 184, 196-213, 215-216, 226-228, 231 n. 51, 240241, 243-245, 248-256, 261; van Caenegem, Judges, pp. 84-85, 93, 101-102; Whitman, J.Q., The Legacy of Roman Law in the German Romantic Era: Historical Vision and Legal Change (Princeton 1990), pp. 3-40Google Scholar, notably pp. 15, 29-31, 35-39. Much of what is said in this section also applies to Italy, cf. A. Braun, “Professors and Judges: It Takes Two to Tango”, forthcoming, section C.

16 J. Schröder, “Das Verhältnis von Rechtsdogmatik und Gesetzgebung in der neuzeitlichen Privatrechtsgeschichte (am Beispiel des Privatrechts)” in Behrends, O. and Henckel, W. (eds.), Gesetzgebung und Dogmatik (Göttingen 1989), pp. 37, 43Google Scholar.

17 Dolezalek, G., “Herrschende Lehre (communis opinio)” in Handwörterbuch zur deutschen Rechtsgeschichte, vol. II (Berlin 1978), cols. 113, 114Google Scholar.

18 Erler, A., “Syndikatsklage” in Handwörterbuch zur deutschen Rechtsgeschichte, vol. V (Berlin 1998), cols. 100, 101Google Scholar. The judges’ “syndicate liability”, based on Roman sources, had been even more rigid in the free communities of late medieval Northern Italy, cf. Engelmann, W., Die Wiedergeburt der Rechtskultur in Italien durch die wissenschaftliche Lehre (Leipzig 1938), pp. 335–466Google Scholar, summarised by Dawson, Oracles, pp. 134-138.

19 A. Stölzel, Die Entwicklung des gelehrten Richterthums in deutschen Territorien, vol. I (Stuttgart 1872), pp. 187-231; G. Buchda, “Aktenversendung” in Handwörterbuch zur deutschen Rechtsgeschichte, vol. I (Berlin 1971), cols. 84-87; H.-W. Thümmel, “Spruchkollegium” Handwörterbuch zur deutschen Rechtsgeschichte, vol. IV (Berlin 1990), cols. 1782-1786.

20 U. Falk, “Der ganze Wald von Konsilien. Rechtsgutachten in der Gerichtspraxis der frühen Neuzeit” (2001) 20 Rechtshistorisches Journal 290, 293.

21 Glöckner, H.P., “Zitiergesetz(e)” in Handwörterbuch zur deutschen Rechtsgeschichte, vol. V (Berlin 1998), cols. 1732-1734Google Scholar; Marongiu, A., “Legislatori e giudici di fronte all’autoritä dei giuristi. Dalla legge citazioni all’art. 265 CPV, Reg. Gen. Giud.” in Studi di storia e diritto in onore di Enrico Besta per il XL anno del suo insegnamento, vol. III (Milano 1939), pp. 441, 441-447, 452-459Google Scholar; G. Teipel, “Zitiergesetze in der romanistischen Tradition'’ (1955) 72 Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte (Romanistische Abteilung) 245, 270-280; Koschaker, Europa, pp. 104-105. See text to n. 27 below.

22 Landsberg, E., Ueber die Entstehung der Regel Quicquid non agnoscit glossa, nec agnoscit forum (Bonn 1880), p. 15Google Scholar, quoting various consiliators.

23 Quotations from Koschaker, Europa, pp. 104-105. In this regard Germany followed the free communities of Northern Italy, where judges, counsel and those giving expert opinions had accorded statute-like authority to the Accursian gloss and, later, to the commentators’ communis opinio, and had departed from it only in exceptional circumstances, cf. Engelmann, Wiedergeburt, pp. 2-3, 37-38, 172-242, 337-338, 393-397, summarised by Dawson, Oracles, pp. 138-144; Marongiu, “Legislatori'', pp. 447-451; Koschaker, Europa, pp. 85-86, 91-92; Wieacker, History, pp. 41, 58-59, 61. See also, more recently, Lange, H., Römisches Recht im Mittelalter, vol. I: Die Glossatoren (München 1997), pp. 260–261, 372-384Google Scholar; Kirshner, J., “Consilia as Authority in Late Medieval Italy: The Case of Florence” in Ascheri, M. et al. (eds.), Legal Consulting in the Civil Law Tradition (Berkeley 1999), pp. 107, 109, 117-118Google Scholar.

24 For the remainder of this paragraph see Schröder, J., Recht als Wissenschaft: Geschichte der juristischen Methode vom Humanismus bis zur historischen Schule (1500-1850) (München 2001), pp. 46–48, 126-129Google Scholar. Cf. also Coing, H., Europäisches Privatrecht, vol. I: Älteres Gemeines Recht (München 1985), p. 124Google Scholar; Engelmann, Wiedergeburt, p. 211; V. Piano Mortari, ‘‘L’argumentum ab auctoritate nel pensiero dei giuristi medievali” (1954) 7 Rivista italiana per le scienze giuridiche (3rd Series) 457 ff.; Horn, N., “Argumentum ab Auctoritate in der legistischen Argumentationstheorie” in Behrends, O. et al. (eds.), Festschrift für Franz Wieacker zum 70. Geburtstag (Göttingen 1978), pp. 261, 270-271Google Scholar.

25 Höpfner, L.J.F., Theoretisch-practischer Commentar über die Heineccischen Institutionen nach deren neuesten Ausgabe (1783) (Weber, A.D. ed.), 7th ed. (Frankfurt 1803), § 59, p. 88Google Scholar.

26 Gai Inst. 1.2 and 7; Pomp. D. 1.2.48-50. See also Inst. 1.2.3, Pap. D. 1.1.7 pr. and Pomp. D. 1.2.5 and 12.

27 Codex Theodosianus 1.4.3. See also Codex Theodosianus 1.4.1-2 (321 and 327 AD) and text to n. 21.

28 Dawson, Oracles, pp. 109-110; Whitman, Legacy, pp. 29-30. The continuity is also stressed by Baade, H.W., “The Education and Qualification of Civil Lawyers in Historical Perspective: From Jurists and Orators to Advocates, Procurators and Notaries” in Cairns, J.W. and Robinson, O.F. (eds.), Critical Studies in Ancient Law, Comparative Law and Legal History: Essays in Honour of Alan Watson (Oxford 2001), pp. 213 ffGoogle Scholar.

29 C. 7.45.13: “cum non exemplis, sed legibus iudicandum est”.

30 See the enumeration in Gehrke, H., Die privatrechtliche Entscheidungsliteratur Deutschlands: Charakteristik und Bibliographie der Rechtsprechungs- und Konsiliensammlungen vom 16. bis zum Beginn des 19. Jahrhunderts (Frankfurt 1974), pp. 167–213Google Scholar.

31 Lawson, F.H., A Common Lawyer Looks at the Civil Law (Ann Arbor 1953), p. 70Google Scholar.

32 M. Luther in a sermon of 1530, quoted from Whitman, Legacy, p. 23.

33 This was already seen by Coke, E., The Second Part of the Institutes of the Laws of England (1642) (ed. Brooke, London 1797)Google Scholar Proeme (beginning of the last paragraph): “Upon the text of the civill law, there be so many glosses and interpretations, and again upon those so many commentaries, and all these written by doctors of equall degree and authority, and therein so many diversities of opinions, as they do rather increase then resolve doubts, and incertainties, and the professors of that noble science say, that it is like a sea full of waves”.

34 Whitman, Legacy, pp. 51-52.

35 Becker, H.-J., “Kommentier- und Auslegungsverbote” in Handwörterbuch zur deutshen Rechtsgeschichte, vol. II (Berlin 1978), cols. 963, 967-968, 970Google Scholar.

36 Project des Corporis Juris Fridericiani, Vorrede, § 28 IX.

37 s. 6 of the Introduction.

38 As to these Marongiu, “Legislatori”, pp. 441, 459-464 and Braun “Professors”, section B.

39 For the remainder of this section see Koschaker, Europa, pp. 208-212, 254-290, notably pp. 257-259, 263-265; Wieacker, History, pp. 277-386, notably pp. 292-297, 310-311, 316-318, 343-345, 352, 363-364, 372-373; Dawson, Oracles, pp. 432 433, 441, 450-461; Whitman, Legacy, pp. 92-150, notably pp. 100, 103-104, 107, 111, 119-125, 135-149; Landau, P., “Die Rechtsquellenlehre in der deutschen Rechtswissenschaft des 19. Jahrhunderts” in Peterson, C. (ed.), Juristische Theoriebildung und rechtliche Einheit (Lund 1993), pp. 69, 70-79Google Scholar; Schröder, Recht, pp. 92-200, 244-249, 266-271.

40 Koschaker, Europa, p. 258.

41 O. Bähr, “Besprechung des Entwurfs eines bürgerlichen Gesetzbuches für das Deutsche Reich” (1889) 30 Kritische Vierteljahresschrift 326 and, in a similar vein, von Gierke, O., Der Entwurf eines bürgerlichen Gesetzbuches und das deutsche Recht (Leipzig 1889), pp. 3, 80Google Scholar. See Schmidt, F., “The German Abstract Approach to Law” (1965) 9 Scandinavian Studies in Law 133, 136-137, 146Google Scholar.

42 Dawson, Oracles, p. 460. See also Lawson, Common Lawyer, p. 53: “It is really an advanced text-book, very like the great books on Pandekten, a philosophical system reduced to statutory form, coherent and rigorous”.

43 Bähr, O., reviewing Jhering's “Scherz und Ernst in der Jurisprudenz” (1885) in Bähr, O., Gesammelte Aufsätze, vol. I (Leipzig 1895), pp. 453, 461Google Scholar. Koschaker, Europa, pp. 103-104 speaks of a “book of authority”. Cf. R. Schröder, “Die deutsche Methodendiskussion um die Jahrhundertwende: Wissenschaftliche Präzisierungsversuche oder Antworten auf den Funktionswandel von Recht und Justiz” (1988) 19 Rechtstheorie 323, 326.

44 Stein, P., “Judge and Jurist in the Civil Law: A Historical Interpretation” (1985) 46 Louisiana L.Rev. 241, 253Google Scholar.

45 For the period before Windscheid see Scheuermann, R., Einflüsse der historischen Rechtsschule auf die oberstrichterliche gemeinrechtliche Zivilrechtspraxis bis zum Jahre 1861 (Berlin/New York 1972), pp. 46–58, 73, 113-114Google Scholar.

46 Binding, K., “Strafgesetzgebung, Strafjustiz und Strafrechtswissenschaft in ihrem normalen Verhältnis zu einander” (1881) 1 Zeitschrift für die gesamte Strafrechtswissenschaft 4, 29Google Scholar.

47 Turner, R.S., “University Reformers and Professorial Scholarship in Germany 1760-1806” in Stone, L. (ed.), The University in Society, vol. II: Europe, Scotland, and the United States from the 16th to the 20th Century (Princeton 1975), pp. 495, 495-498, 515-531Google Scholar.

48 von Savigny, C.F., Vom Beruf unsrer Zeit für Gesetzgebung und Rechtswissenschaft (Heidelberg 1814), p. 146Google Scholar.

49 See the contributions in Coing, H. and Wilhelm, W. (eds.), Wissenschaft und Kodifikation des Privatrechts im 19. Jahrhundert (Frankfurt 1974)Google Scholar.

50 Windscheid, B., “Die geschichtliche Schule in der Rechtswissenschaft” (1878) in Windscheid, B., Gesammelte Reden und Abhandlungen (Oertmann, P. ed.) (Leipzig 1904), pp. 66, 76Google Scholar, with respect to the impending codification of German private law. For further references on this “pandectification” of the Codes see Zimmermann, R., Roman Law, Contemporary Law, European Law: The Civilian Tradition Today (Oxford 2000), pp. 6–8Google Scholar.

51 Stolleis, M., “Zur Bedeutung der Rechtswissenschaft für die Dynamik der Rechtsordnung im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert”, in Dauchy, S. et al. (eds.), Auctoritates: Xenia R.C. van Caenegem oblata—Law Making and its Authors, (Brussels 1997), pp. 118, 124-128Google Scholar. For a different view see Smend, R., “Der Einfluß der deutschen Staats- und Verwaltungsrechtslehre des 19. Jahrhunderts auf das Leben in Verfassung und Verwaltung” (1939) 4 Deutsche Rechtswissenschaft 25–39Google Scholar.

52 This expression is used by G.F. Puchta, Vorlesungen über das heutige römische Recht, vol. I (A.A.F. Rudorff ed.), 4th ed. (Leipzig 1854), p. 42.

53 Savigny, Beruf, pp. 12-13; C.F. Savigny, System des heutigen Römischen Rechts, vol. I (Berlin 1840), pp. 13-18, 45 49. Koschaker, Europa, pp. 211, 257 thus suggests to speak of “professors’ law”.

54 Savigny, System I, pp. 46-47: “so dass auch aus der Wissenschaft als solcher eine neue Art der Rechtserzeugung unenthaltsam hervorgeht”, 89; Puchta, Vorlesungen I, p. 41: “So ist die Wissenschaft nicht bloß eine receptive Thätigkeit (Interpretation der Gesetze und des Gewohnheitsrechts), sondern auch eine productive. Sie ist selbst eine Rechtsquelle”.

55 Windscheid, “Geschichtliche Schule”, p. 77 characteristically states that every code and every single statute expects “help and support” of those who “have the vocation for recognising its content and applying it”.

56 Savigny, System I, pp. xx, xxiv-xxvii, 88-89, 189; Savigny, Beruf, pp. 126-130.

57 C.F.W. von Gerber, System des Deutschen Privatrechts, 2nd ed. (Jena 1850), p. 276. See, also, Savigny, System I, p. 66 who recognises statutes, custom and “scientific law‘’ as sources of law and Thöl, H., Einleitung in das deutsche Privatrecht (Göttingen 1851), p. 138Google Scholar: “Legal science is a source of law. It brings out legal norms which were missing before, thus it creates law”.

58 Wieacker, History, pp. 341-349.

59 Cf. Koschaker, Europa, pp. 118, 248-253; Wieacker, History, pp. 61-65, 120-126, 239-256; von Stephanitz, D., Exakte Wissenschaft und Recht: Der Einfluß von Naturwissenschaft und Mathematik auf Rechtsdenken und Rechtswissenschaft in zweieinhalb Jahrtausenden (Berlin 1970)Google Scholar; Schröder, Recht, pp. 91-92, 167-186.

60 For this paragraph see Reimann, M., “Nineteenth Century German Legal Science” (1990) 31 Boston College L.Rev. 837, 846-894Google Scholar.

61 See the references provided by M. Herberger, “Beziehungen zwischen Naturwissenschaft und Jurisprudenz in der ersten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts” (1983) 6 Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte 79, 81-82.

62 Savigny, System I, p. xxxvi, 10, 214.

63 R. Jhering, “Unsere Aufgabe” (1857) 1 Jahrbücher für die Dogmatik des heutigen römischen und deutschen Privatrechts 1, 16, 19; P. Laband, Das Staatsrecht des deutschen Reiches, vol. I, 2nd ed. (Freiburg 1887), p. xi: “The construction of legal institutions, the tracing of specific legal rules back to more general concepts, on the one hand, and the deduction from these concepts of implicit legal effects, on the other, are the scientific tasks of the dogmatics of a certain positive legal system”.

64 C.F.W. von Gerber, Grundzüge eines Systems des deutschen Staatsrechts, 2nd ed. (Leipzig 1869), Preface, p. 28: “reines Rechnen mit Begriffen”. See already Savigny, Beruf, p. 29.

65 Jhering, “Aufgabe”, 8-9.

66 Puchta, Vorlesungen I, p. 39, as quoted in n. 54 above. This is taken up by Jhering, “Aufgabe”, 3-4, 7, 8-9, and Dernburg, H., Pandekten, vol. I, 6th ed. (Berlin 1900), p. 82Google Scholar still maintains “that the law is a system which has the capability to complete itself from within”. For further references as to the “productive” method in the writings of Puchta, Jhering, Gerber and Laband see Wilhelm, W, Zur juristischen Methodenlehre im 19. Jahrhundert: Die Herkunft der Methode Paul Labands aus der Privatrechtswissenschaft (Frankfurt 1958), pp. 811Google Scholar, 76-77, 88-89, 111 n. 98, 112-116, 133-136, 146-149; for commercial law see Rückert, J., “Handelsrechtsbildung und Modernisierung des Handelsrechts durch Wissenschaft zwischen 1800 und 1900”in Scherner, K.O. (ed.), Modernisierung des Handelsrechts im 19. Jahrhundert (Heidelberg 1993), pp. 19, 23-24, 42-66Google Scholar.

67 Schrader, E., Die prätorischen Edicte der Römer auf unsere Verhältnisse übertragen (Weimar 1815), p. 50Google Scholar: “Schöpfer und Bildner”. In a similar vein Jhering, “Aufgabe”, 11.

68 Cf. S. Vogenauer, “Learning and Lawmaking in Germany Today”, forthcoming.