Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/82

 64 THE CLASSICAL HERITAGE [chap. never did a Christian emperor enact a law contravening the universal recognition of the Christian Church that the virgin state was the state of preeminent Christian merit and holiness. These novel Christian views em- bodied in imperial edicts did not touch the principles of the Koman law ; its mode of reasoning, its legal conceptions, and the general rules of contract law were not affected. As has been seen, the pre-Justinian codes with bits of the old jurisprudential law were the sources of the barbarian codes of E-oman law current to the north and west of Italy. In Italy, however, the Roman law as applied was drawn from the legislation of Justin- ian, and indeed from his legislation proper — Codex, Novels, Institutes — rather than from his compilation of jurisprudential law, the Digest. Some knowledge of Roman law always existed in Italy and other parts of Western Europe; and to some extent Roman law continued to be applied in the courts of the Romance countries. But from the seventh to the end of the eleventh century the Roman law as a whole was not known and understood in a scientific and intelligent manner. During this period there appear to have been no schools of law, properly speaking, nor any original writing upon jurisprudence.^ iThis is substantially the view of Savigny, Oesch., I, Cap. VI, and Bd. Ill, p. 83, and of Flach, JEtudes Critiques, etc. See, also, Conrat, op. cit., pp. 96 et seq. ; Muirhead, op. cit., § 90; S. Amos, Civil Law of Rome, p. 414, etc. It is opposed by Fitting, who maintains that Roman law was taught at all times in the Middle Ages in schools of law, mostly connected with the Church ; that it was also taught in connection with the Trivium ; that at all periods there was a juristic literature, and law was treated scientifically.