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 von Savigny (1814–1875), was Prussian minister of foreign affairs in 1849. He represented Prussia in important diplomatic transactions, especially in 1866.

Savigny belongs to the so-called historical school of jurists, though he cannot claim to be regarded as its founder, an honour which belongs to Gustav Hugo. In the history of jurisprudence Savigny’s great works are the Recht des Besitzes and the Beruf unserer Zeit für Gesetzgebung above referred to. The former marks an epoch in jurisprudence. Professor Jhering says: “With the Recht des Besitzes the juridical method of the Romans was regained, and modern jurisprudence born.” It marked a great advance both in results and method, and rendered obsolete a large literature. Savigny sought to prove that in Roman law possession had always reference to “usucapion” or to “interdicts”; that there is not a right to continuance in possession but only to immunity from interference; possession being based on the consciousness of unlimited power. These and other propositions were maintained with great acuteness and unequalled ingenuity in interpreting and harmonizing the Roman jurists. The controversy which has been carried on in Germany by Jhering, Baron, Gans and Bruns shows that many of Savigny’s conclusions have not been accepted. The Beruf unserer Zeit, in addition to the more specific object the treatise had in view, which has been already treated, expresses the idea, unfamiliar in 1814, that law is part and parcel of national life, and combats the notion, too much assumed by French jurists, especially in the 18th century, and countenanced in practice by Bentham, that law might be arbitrarily imposed on a country irrespective of its state of civilization and past history. Of even greater value than his services in consolidating “the historical school of jurisprudence” is the emphatic recognition in his works of the fact that the practice and theory of jurisprudence cannot be divorced without injury to both.

 SAVILE, SIR GEORGE (1726–1784), English politician, was the only son of Sir George Savile, Bart. (d. 1743), of Rufford, Nottinghamshire, and was born in London on the 18th of July 1726. He entered the House of Commons as member for Yorkshire in 1759. In general he advocated views of a very liberal character, including measures of relief to Roman Catholics and to Protestant dissenters, and he defended the action of the American colonists. He refused to take office and in 1783 he resigned his seat in parliament. He died unmarried in London on the 10th of January 1784. Horace Walpole says Savile had “a large fortune and a larger mind,” and Burke had also a very high opinion of him. He bequeathed Rufford and some of his other estates to his nephew, Richard Lumley (1757–1832), a younger son of Richard Lumley Saunderson, 4th earl of Scarborough (1725–1782), Richard took the additional name of Savile, but when on his brother’s death in 1807 he became 6th earl of Scarborough the Savile estates passed to his brother John (1760–1835), afterwards the 7th earl. John’s son and heir was John Lumley Savile, 8th earl of Scarborough (1788–1856). The 8th earl was never married, but he left four natural sons, the eldest of whom was John Savile (1818–1896), the diplomatist, who was created Baron Savile of Rufford in 1888. He entered the foreign office in 1841, was British envoy at Dresden and at Berne, and from 1883 to 1888 represented his country in Rome. Although the eldest son, he did not inherit Rufford and his father’s other estates until after the deaths of two of his younger brothers. He made a fine collection of pictures and died at Rufford on the 28th of November 1896, when his nephew John Savile Lumley Savile (b. 1854) became the 2nd baron.  SAVILE, SIR HENRY (1549–1622), warden of Merton College, Oxford, and provost of Eton, was the son of Henry Savile of Bradley, near Halifax, in Yorkshire, a member of an old county family, the Saviles of Methley, and of his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Robert Ramsden. He was educated at Brasenose College, Oxford, where he matriculated in 1561. He became a fellow of Merton in 1565, proceeded B.A. in 1566, and M.A. in 1570. He established a reputation as a Greek scholar and mathematician by voluntary lectures on the Almagest, and in 1575 became junior proctor. In 1578 he travelled on the continent of Europe, where he collected manuscripts and is said to have been employed by Queen Elizabeth as her resident in the Low Countries. On his return he was named Greek tutor to the queen, and in 1585 was established as warden of Merton by a vigorous exercise of the interest of Lord Burghley and Secretary Walsingham. He proved a successful and autocratic head under whom the college flourished. A translation of four Books of the Histories of Tacitus, with a learned Commentary on Roman Warfare in 1591, enhanced his reputation. On the 26th of May 1596 he obtained the provost ship of Eton, the reward of persistent begging. He was not qualified for the post by the statutes of the college, for he was not in orders, and the queen was reluctant to name him. Savile insisted with considerable ingenuity that the queen had a right to dispense with statutes, and at last he got his way. In February 1601 he was put under arrest on suspicion of having been concerned in the rebellion of the earl of Essex. He was soon released and his friendship with the faction of Essex went far to gain him the favour of James I. So no doubt did the views he had maintained in regard to the statutes of Eton. It may have been to his advantage that his elder brother, Sir John Savile (1545–1607), was a high prerogative lawyer, and was one of the barons of the exchequer who in 1606 affirmed the right of the king to impose import and export duties on his own authority. On the 30th of September 1604 Savile was knighted, and in that year he was named one of the body of scholars appointed to prepare the authorized version of the Bible. He was entrusted with parts of the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles and the Book of Revelation. In 1604 died the only son born of his marriage in 1592 with Margaret Dacre, and Sir Henry Savile is thought to have been induced by this loss to devote the bulk of his fortune to the promotion of learning, though he had a daughter who survived him and who became the mother of the dramatist Sir Charles Sedley. His edition of Chrysostom in eight folio volumes was published in 1610–1613. It was printed by the king’s printer, William Norton, in a private press erected at the expense of Sir Henry, who imported the type. The Chrysostom, which cost him £8000 and did not sell well, was the most considerable work of pure learning undertaken in England in his time. At the same press he published an edition of the Cyropaedia in 1618. In 1619 he founded and endowed his professorships of geometry and astronomy at Oxford. He died at Eton on the 19th of February 1622. Sir Henry Savile has been sometimes confounded with another Henry Savile, called “Long Harry” (1570–1617), who gave currency to the forged addition to the Chronicle of Asser which contains the story that King Alfred founded the university of Oxford.

A brother, (d. 1593), was also a member of Merton College, Oxford, and had some reputation as a scholar.

 SAVINGS BANKS (Fr. caisses d'épargne; Ger. Sparkassen), institutions for the purpose of receiving small deposits of money and investing them for the benefit of the depositors at compound interest. They originated in the latter part of the 18th century—a period marked by a great advance in the organization of provident habits in general (see ). They seem, however, to have been first suggested by Daniel Defoe in 1697. The earliest institution of the kind in Europe was one established at Brunswick in 1765; it was followed in 1778 by that of Hamburg, which still exists, in 1786 by one at Oldenburg, in 1790 by one at Loire, in 1792 by that of Basel, in 1794 by one at Geneva, which had but a short existence, and in 1796 by one at Kiel in Holstein. In Great Britain, in 1797, Jeremy Bentham revived Defoe’s suggestion under the name of “Frugality Banks,” and in 1799 the Rev. Joseph Smith put it in action at Wendover. This was followed in 1801 by the addition of a savings bank to the friendly society which Mrs Priscilla Wakefield had established