Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/69

 2. JENKS: TEUTONIC LAW 55 discussed by all." How far Edward foresaw this result, how far he desired it, how far he borrowed the ideas of others, how far he acted willingly, must be left for specialists to decide. But the broad fact remains, that he created the most effective law-declaring machine in the Teutonic world of his day, that he gave to England her unique place in the history of Law. One part only of the scheme was a temporary failure. Though Edward succeeded, after a sharp struggle, in com- pelling the nominal adhesion of the clergy to the new system, the Canon Law continued, for two centuries and a half, to be a real rival of the national law. But its day came at last; and, after the Reformation, the clergy found themselves legislated for by a Parliament in which they had ceased to have any effective share. Though a just judgement upon an unpatriotic policy, it was a blot on the system, which has never yet been quite removed. But, with the Reformation, the modern idea of Law was at last realized ; and Hobbes could truly say, in words which became the text of Austin's teaching — "Civil Law is, to every subject, those Rules which the Commonwealth hath commanded him." But this was the result of a thousand years of history ; and, as yet, it was true of England alone.^ In this important matter, we are apt to be deceived. For, if we look to the continent of Europe, we see that there are Etats Generaux in France, Cortes in Castile and Aragon, a Reichstag or Diet of the Holy Roman Empire in Germany. And these bodies do, undoubtedly, declare a certain amount of law. But the great mass of the collection of French Ordonnances which has been edited by M. Lauriere and his successors, was never submitted to the Etats Greneraux; it is the work of the king and his Council. The scanty legislation of the Cortes does not suffice for the needs of Spain, which have to be met by such compilations as El ftiero vie jo de Castilla, El fuero Juzgo, and Las Siete Partidas, which are not legislation at all, but merely new editions of the old Leges Wisigothorum, collections of judicial decisions, and adapta- tions of the Pandects. In Germany, the Diet ceases to be an effective body from the death of Frederick 11. ; and, though
 * Hobbes, Leviathan, cap. xxvi.