Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/188

 174 //. FROM THE llOO'S TO THE 1800'S — the reception of Roman law — plays a large part in mod- ern versions of German history, and by no means only in such as are written by lawyers. I need not say that it has been judged from many different points of view, that it has been connected by some with political, by others with relig- away by the receyuyng of thys wych we cal the veray cyuyle law; wych ys vndowtydly the most auncyent and nobyl monument of the Romaynys prudence and pollycy, the wych be so wryte wyth such grauyte, that yf Nature schold herselfe prescrybe partycular meanys wherby mankynd schold obserue hyr lawys, I thynke sche wold admyt the same: specyally, yf they were, by a lytyl more wysedome, brought to a lytyl bettur ordur and frame, wych myght be sone downe and put in effect. And so ther aftur that, yf the nobylyte were brought vp in thys lawys vndoubtydly our cuntrey wold schortly be restoryd to as gud cyuylyte as there ys in any other natyon; ye, and peradventure much bettur also. For though thes lawys wych I haue so praysyd be commyn among them, yet, bycause the nobylyte ther commynly dothe not exer- cyse them in the studys thereof, they be al applyd to lucur and gayne, bycause the popular men wych are borne in pouerty only doth exercyse them for the most parte, wych ys a grete ruyne of al gud ordur and cyuylyte. Where for. Master Lvpste, yf we myght bryng thys ij. thyngys to effecte — that ys to say, to haue the cyuyle law of the Romaynys to be the commyn law here of Englond with vs; and, secondary, that the nobylyte in theyr youth schold study commynly therin — I thynk we schold not nede to seke partycular remedys for such mysordurys as we haue notyd before; for surely thys same publj^ke dyscyplyne schold redresse them lyghtly; ye, and many other mow, the wych we spake not yet of at al." Lupset thereupon objects that, seeing we have so many years been governed by our own law, it will be hard to bring this reform to pass. Pole replies that the goodness of a prince would bring it to pass quickly: "the wych I pray God we may onys see." The Pole of the Dialogue wished to make the power to entail lands a privilege of the nobility. A project of this kind had been in the air: perhaps in King Henry's mind. See Letters and Papers, Henry VIII., vol. iv., pt. 2, p. 2693 (a. d. 1529): "Draft bill. . . proposing to enact that from 1 Jan. next all entails be annulled and all possessions be held in fee simple. . . . The Act is not to affect the estates of noble- men within the degree of baron." This is one of the proposals for restoring the king's feudal revenue which lead up to the Statute of Uses: an Act whose embryonic history has not yet been written, though Dr. Stubbs has thrown oiit useful hints. (Seventeen Lectures, ed. 3, p. 321.) When Pole left England in 1532 he went to Avignon where Alciato had lately been lecturing and became for a short while a pupil of Giovanni Francesco Ripa (Zimmermann, Kardinal Pole, 1893, p. 51), who was both canonist and legist. Whether at any time Pole made a serious study of the civil law I do not know. In 1534 Pole and Starkey were tor^ether at Padua; Pole was studying theology, Starkey the civil law. Starkey in a letter says "Francis Curtius is dead, to the grief of those who follow the doctrine of Bartholus." Perhaps we may infer from this that Starkey was in the camp of the Anti-Bartolists (Letters and Papers, Henry VIII., vol. vii., p. 331). In 1535 he says that he has been study- ing the civil law in order to form "a better judgment of the politic order and customs used in our country" (Ibid. vol. viii., p. 80).