Page:The Mediaeval Mind Vol 2.djvu/270

258 modes in which possession is acquired by transfer, then the nature of the justa or injusta causa with which possession may begin, and the effect on the rights of the possessor, and then some matters more peculiar to the time of Justinian. After which he passes to the loss of possession, and concludes with saying that he has endeavoured to go over the whole subject, and whatever is omitted or insufficiently treated, he begs that it be laid to the fault of humanae imbecillitatis. The discussion reads like a carefully drawn outline which his lecture should expand.

The knowledge and understanding of the Roman law in the mediaeval centuries should be viewed in conjunction with the general progress of intellectual aptitude during the same periods. The growth of legal knowledge will then show itself as a part of mediaeval development, as one phase of the flowering of the mediaeval intellect. For the treatment of Roman law presents stages essentially analogous to those by which the Middle Ages reached their understanding and appropriation of other portions of their great inheritance from classical antiquity and the Christianity of the Fathers. Let us recapitulate: the Roman law, adapted, or corrupted if one will, epitomized and known chiefly in its later enacted forms, was never unapplied nor the study of it quite abandoned. It constituted a great part of the law of Italy and southern France; in these two regions likewise was its study least neglected. We have observed the superficial and mainly linguistic nature of the glosses which this early mediaeval period interlined or wrote on the margins of the source-books drawn upon, also the rude and barbarous nature of the earlier summaries and compilations. They were helps to a crude practical knowledge of the law. Gradually the treatment seems to become more intelligent, a little nearer the level of the matter excerpted or made use of. Through the eleventh century it is evident that social conditions were demanding and also facilitating an increase in legal knowledge; and at that century's close a by no means stupid compilation appears, the Petri exceptiones, and perhaps such a fairly intelligent manual for elementary