Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/193

 6. M AIT LAND: THE RENAISSANCE 179 for a practical Reception of the civil law is ascribed to the future cardinal, who In his last days reconciled England for a moment, not with the Rome of the Digest, but with the Rome of the Decretals. And by the way we may notice that when the cardinal was here upon his reconciliatory errand he had for a while as his legal adviser one of the most learned lawyers of that age, the Spaniard Antonio Agustin. But we in England take little notice of this famous man, who, so foreigners assure us now-a-days, began the historical study of the canon law and knew more about the false Isidore than it was comfortable for him to know.^ Our Dr. Smith was some of the bishops have been using in the endowment of legal studies at the universities : e. g. Bishop Bateman at Cambridge. Wyclif, Select English Works, ed. Arnold, vol. iii., p. 326: "It were more profit . bo]je to body and soule Jat oure curatis lerneden and taujten many of Jie kyngis statutis, ]jan lawe of J)e emperour. For oure peple is bounden to J)e kyngis statutis and not to ^e emperours lawe, but in as moche as it is enclosid in Goddis hestis. panne moche tresour and moch tyme of many hundrid clerkis in unyversite and ojjhere placis is foule wastid aboute bookis of J>e emperours lawe and studie about hem. ... It seme)) Jjat curatis scliulden rajjere lerne and teche J)e kyngis statutis, and namely >e Grete Chartre, ]7an ])e emperours lawe or myche part of the popis. For men in oure rewme ben bounden to obeche to J»e kyng and Ws rijtful lawes and not so to j?e emperours; and jjei my3tten wonder wel be savyd, }>ou3 many lawes of J>e pope had nevere be spoken, in Jjis world ne ])e tojjere." Wyclif, Unprinted English Works, Early English Text Society, 1880, p. 157: " pe fyue and twentijje errour: J)ei chesen newe lawis maad of synful men and worldly and couetyse prestis and clerkis . . . for now he])enne mennus lawis and world clerkis statutis ben red in vnyuersi- tees, and curatis lernen hem faste wijj grete desire, studie and cost . . . Ibid. p. 184: . . . lawieris maken process bi sotilte and cauyllacions of lawe cyule, J)at is moche he ene mennus lawe, and not accepten the forme of )je gospel, as 3if J)e gospel were no so good as paynymes lawe." It is interesting to see Janssen's denunciation of Roman law as Pagan thus forestalled by the great heretic, in whose eyes the Decretals were but little, if at all, better than the Digest. ^ For Antonio Agustin (born 1517, bishop of Alife 1556, bishop of Lerida 1561, archbishop of Tarragona 1576, died 1586) see Schulte, Oeschichte der Quellen und Literatur des canonischen Rechts, vol. iii., p. 723; Maasen, Geschichte der Quellen des canonischen Rechts, vol. i., pp. xix if. His stay in England is attested in the Venetian Calendars, 1555-6, pp. 20, 24, 32, 34, 56, 166. See also Ibid., 1556-7, p. 1335. See also the funeral oration by And. Schott suflBixed to Ant. Augustini D& emendatione Oratiani dialogorum libri duo. Par. 1607, p. 320: " lulius tertius P. M. . . . adeo Antonium dilexit ut et intimis consiliis adhi- buerit, legatumque summa cum auctoritate in Britanniam insulam opibus florentissimam miserit, cum Rex vere Catholicus Philippus secundus Mariam reginam, Catholicorum regum Ferdinandi et Isabellae neptem, duxit uxorem. . . . Anno 1555 revertit ex Anglia Romam Augustinus." Apparently he was sent, not merely in order that he might congratulate Philip and Mary, but also that " tanquam iurisconsultus legato adesset "