Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/176

 162 //. FROM THE llOO'S TO THE 1800'S But, that Germany and Scotland ^ should accept the Corptit Juris of Justinian is, apparently, so wild a freak of history as to deserve at least a passing wonder. And this wonder is increased by the discovery that England, so closely allied with Scotland and Germany in the course of history, so like them in civilisation, so near them in geographical position, at the critical moment, rejected the Roman Law, and went off on an entirely different course. And this critical moment is the reign, or at least the lifetime, of Edward Plantage- net. The explanation is twofold. It lies partly in the notion which men then held of Law, partly in the circumstances of English history. It would be very easy to wander grad- ually into speculations as to the nature of Law, which would land us in a hopeless quagmire of confusion. " Law " is one of those familiar words which everybody thinks he under- stands, until he tries to explain them. But, briefly speaking, the notion of Law, in the thirteenth century, vibrated between three different conceptions. One was, that Law was a divine or, at least, a philosophical ideal, which could only be dis- covered by great wisdom and patient study. Men ought to conform their lives to a high ideal. And, as the Scriptures dealt mainly with principles and generalities, a system of Law was necessary to define details. The supporters of this view urged the adoption of the Corpus Juris as the required ideal. Nowhere else, they urged, was it possible to find such profound wisdom applied to the details of secular affairs. The revival of learning tended to give immense weight to the writings of the ancients ; and Europe in the thirteenth century was far too uncritical to distinguish between the dates of Aristotle, Virgil, and the Roman jurist. Gains. They were all " ancients," and that was enough. But it is doubtful whether the Corpus Juris would ever have obtained its immense success, had it not itself ostensibly maintained a second conception of Law, which had always found favour with a certain very important, if limited, class and Scotland received the Roman Law. But the fact is none the less striking on that account.
 * It was, of course, long after the thirteenth century that Germany