An empire of light? learning and lawmaking in the history of german law

Cambridge Law Journal

Volumn 64, Issue 2, 2005, Pages 481-500

  Vogenauer, Stefan ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD   (United Kingdom)

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EID: 33845712561     PISSN: 00081973     EISSN: 14692139     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0008197305006938     Document Type: Article

References (120)

1. J. Austin, The Province of Jurisprudence Determined: Being the First Part of a Series of Lectures on Jurisprudence, or the Philosophy of Positive Law (1832), 2nd ed. (London 1861), p. xciv.
2. A.B. Schwarz, “John Austin and the German Jurisprudence of his Time” (1934) 1 Politica 178, 183.
3. T.E. Holland in a letter to O.W. Holmes, Eight November 1891, cited from R.A. Cosgrove “Sir Thomas Erskine Holland and the Treatise Tradition: The Elements of Jurisprudence Revisited” in J.A. Bush and A. Wijffels (eds.), Learning the Law: Law Teaching and the Transmission of Law in England 1150–1900 (London 1999), pp. 397, 401.
4. J. Rüttimann, Der englische Civil-Prozeβ mit besonderer Berücksichtigung des Verfahrens der Westminster Rechtshöfe (Leipzig 1851), p. viii.
5. R. Sacco, “Legal Formants: a Dynamic Approach to Comparative Law (Installment [sic] I of II)” (1991) 39 American Journal of Comparative Law 1, 22.
6. As to the concept of “legal style” see K. Zweigert and H. Kotz, An Introduction to Comparative Law, 3rd ed. (Oxford 1998), pp. 67–72
7. The latter view is emphatically put forward by R.C. van Caenegem, Judges, Legislators and Professors: Chapters in European Legal History (Cambridge 1987), pp. 67–69, 84–86, 108–109.
8. E. Shils and M. Rheinstein (trsl.), Max Weber on Law in Economy and Society (Cambridge Mass. 1954), pp. 52, 199–223.
9. J.P. Dawson The Oracles of the Law (Ann Arbor 1968), taking up an expression used for the judges by W. Blackstone Commentaries on the Laws of England, vol. I (Oxford 1765), p. 69.
10. R. Sacco, “Legal Formants: a Dynamic Approach to Comparative Law (Installment [sic] II of II)” (1991) 39 American Journal of Comparative Law 343, 348
11. P.S. Atiyah and R.S. Summers, Form and Substance in Anglo-American Law (Oxford 1987), pp. 384–407.
12. Dawson, Oracles pp. 339, 348–349, 375
13. Zweigert and Kotz, Introduction, pp. 129, 132.
14. See, e.g., van Caenegem, Judges, p. 53: “No contrast could be greater”, and p. 65: “How can this enormous difference between England and Germany be explained? Why this extreme contrast of judge-made law on one side of the North Sea and professor-made law on the other”
15. H. Mohnhaupt, “Rechtseinheit durch Rechtsprechung? Zu Theorie und Praxis gerichtlicher Regelbildung im 19. Jahrhundert in Deutschland” in C. Peterson (ed.), Juristische Theoriebildung und rechtliche Einheit (Lund 1993), pp. 117, 127.
16. For accounts of this story see F. Wieacker, A History of Private Law in Europe (Oxford 1995), pp. 67–155
17. Zweigert and Kotz, Introduction, pp. 133–135.
18. For this section see P. Koschaker, Europa und das römische Recht, 4th ed. (Munchen 1966), pp. 119, 224–228, 241–242
19. Wieacker, History, pp. 67–195, notably pp. 94, 98, 133, 136–139
20. Dawson, Oracles, pp. 148–262, notably pp. 184, 196–213, 215–216, 226–228, 231 n. 51, 240- 241, 243–245, 248–256, 261
21. van Caenegem, Judges, pp. 84–85, 93, 101–102
22. J.Q. Whitman, The Legacy of Roman Law in the German Romantic Era: Historical Vision and Legal Change (Princeton 1990), pp. 3–40, notably pp. 15, 29–31, 35–39.
23. Much of what is said in this section also applies to Italy, cf. A. Braun, “Professors and Judges: It Takes Two to Tango”, forthcoming, section C.
24. J. Schroder, “Das Verhaltnis von Rechtsdogmatik und Gesetzgebung in der neuzeitlichen Privatrechtsgeschichte (am Beispiel des Privatrechts)” in O. Behrends and W. Henckel (eds.), Gesetzgebung und Dogmatik (Gottingen 1989), pp. 37, 43.
25. G. Dolezalek, “Herrschende Lehre (communis opinio)” in Handwörterbuch zur deutschen Rechtsgeschichte, vol. II (Berlin 1978), cols. 113, 114.
26. A. Erler, “Syndikatsklage” in Handwörterbuch zur deutschen Rechtsgeschichte, vol. V (Berlin 1998), cols. 100, 101.
27. The judges' “syndicate liability”, based on Roman sources, had been even more rigid in the free communities of late medieval Northern Italy, cf. W. Engelmann, Die Wiedergeburt der Rechtskultur in Italien durch die wissenschaftliche Lehre (Leipzig 1938), pp. 335–466
28. summarised by Dawson, Oracles, pp. 134–138.
29. A. Stölzel, Die Entwicklung des gelehrten Richterthums in deutschen Territorien, vol. I (Stuttgart 1872), pp. 187–231
30. G. Buchda, “Aktenversendung” in Handwörterbuch zur deutschen Rechtsgeschichte, vol. I (Berlin 1971), cols. 84–87
31. H.-W. Thümmel, “Spruchkollegium” Handwörterbuch zur deutschen Rechtsgeschichte, vol. IV (Berlin 1990), cols. 1782–1786.
32. U. Falk, “Der ganze Wald von Konsilien. Rechtsgutachten in der Gerichtspraxis der frühen Neuzeit” (2001) 20 Rechtshistorisches Journal 290, 293.
33. H.P. Glöckner, “Zitiergesetz(e)” in Handwörterbuch zur deutschen Rechtsgeschichte, vol. V (Berlin 1998), cols. 1732–1734
34. A. Marongiu, “Legislatori e giudici di fronte all'autorit´ dei giuristi. Dalla legge citazioni all'art. 265 CPV, Reg. Gen. Giud.” in Studi di storia e diritto in onore di Enrico Besta per il XL anno del suo insegnamento, vol. III (Milano 1939), pp. 441, 441–447, 452–459
35. G. Teipel, “Zitiergesetze in der romanistischen Tradition” (1955) 72 Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung för Rechtsgeschichte (Romanistische Abteilung) 245, 270–280
36. Koschaker, Europa, pp. 104–105. See text to n. 27 below.
37. E. Landsberg, Ueber die Entstehung der Regel Quicquid non agnoscit glossa, nec agnoscit forum (Bonn 1880), p. 15, quoting various consiliators.
38. Quotations from Koschaker, Europa, pp. 104–105. In this regard Germany followed the free communities of Northern Italy, where judges, counsel and those giving expert opinions had accorded statute-like authority to the Accursian gloss and, later, to the commentators' communis opinio, and had departed from it only in exceptional circumstances
39. cf. Engelmann, Wiedergeburt, pp. 2–3, 37–38, 172–242, 337–338, 393–397
40. summarised by Dawson, Oracles, pp. 138–144
41. Marongiu, “Legislatori”, pp. 447–451
42. Koschaker, Europa, pp. 85–86, 91–92
43. Wieacker, History, pp. 41, 58–59, 61.
44. See also, more recently, H. Lange, Römisches Recht im Mittelalter, vol. I: Die Glossatoren (Munchen 1997), pp. 260–261, 372–384
45. J. Kirshner, “Consilia as Authority in Late Medieval Italy: The Case of Florence” in M. Ascheri et al. (eds.), Legal Consulting in the Civil Law Tradition (Berkeley 1999), pp. 107, 109, 117–118.
46. For the remainder of this paragraph see J. Schröder, Recht als Wissenschaft: Geschichte der juristischen Methode vom Humanismus bis zur historischen Schule (1500–1850) (München 2001), pp. 46–48, 126–129.
47. Cf. also H. Coing, Europäisches Privatrecht, vol. I: Älteres Gemeines Recht (Munchen 1985), p. 124
48. Engelmann, Wiedergeburt, p. 211
49. V. Piano Mortari, “L'argumentum ab auctoritate nel pensiero dei giuristi medievali” (1954) 7 Rivista italiana per le scienze giuridiche (3rd Series) 457 ff.
50. N. Horn, “Argumentum ab Auctoritate in der legistischen Argumentationstheorie” in O. Behrends et al. (eds.), Festschrift für Franz Wieacker zum 70. Geburtstag (Göttingen 1978), pp. 261, 270–271.
51. L.J.F. Höpfner, Theoretisch-practischer Commentar über die Heineccischen Institutionen nach deren neuesten Ausgabe (1783) (A.D. Weber ed.), 7th ed. (Frankfurt 1803), § 59, p. 88.
52. Dawson, Oracles, pp. 109–110
53. Whitman, Legacy, pp. 29–30.
54. The continuity is also stressed by H.W. Baade, “The Education and Qualification of Civil Lawyers in Historical Perspective: From Jurists and Orators to Advocates, Procurators and Notaries” in J.W. Cairns and O.F. Robinson (eds.), Critical Studies in Ancient Law, Comparative Law and Legal History: Essays in Honour of Alan Watson (Oxford 2001), pp. 213 ff.
55. See the enumeration in H. Gehrke, Die privatrechtliche Entscheidungsliteratur Deutschlands: Charakteristik und Bibliographie der Rechtsprechungs- und Konsiliensammlungen vom 16. bis zum Beginn des 19. Jahrhunderts (Frankfurt 1974), pp. 167–213.
56. F.H. Lawson, A Common Lawyer Looks at the Civil Law (Ann Arbor 1953), p. 70.
57. M. Luther in a sermon of 1530, quoted from Whitman, Legacy, p. 23.
58. This was already seen by E. Coke, The Second Part of the Institutes of the Laws of England (1642) (ed. Brooke, London 1797) Proeme (beginning of the last paragraph): “Upon the text of the civill law, there be so many glosses and interpretations, and again upon those so many commentaries, and all these written by doctors of equall degree and authority, and therein so many diversities of opinions, as they do rather increase then resolve doubts, and incertainties, and the professors of that noble science say, that it is like a sea full of waves”.
59. Whitman, Legacy, pp. 51–52.
60. H.-J. Becker, “Kommentier- und Auslegungsverbote” in Handwörterbuch zur deutshen Rechtsgeschichte, vol. II (Berlin 1978), cols. 963, 967–968, 970.
61. Project des Corporis Juris Fridericiani, Vorrede, § 28 IX.
62. As to these Marongiu, “Legislatori”, pp. 441, 459–464 and Braun “Professors”, section B.
63. For the remainder of this section see Koschaker, Europa, pp. 208–212, 254–290, notably pp. 257–259, 263–265
64. Wieacker, History, pp. 277–386, notably pp. 292–297, 310–311, 316–318, 343–345, 352, 363–364, 372–373
65. Dawson, Oracles, pp. 432–433, 441, 450–461
66. Whitman, Legacy, pp. 92–150, notably pp. 100, 103–104, 107, 111, 119–125, 135–149
67. P. Landau, “Die Rechtsquellenlehre in der deutschen Rechtswissenschaft des 19. Jahrhunderts” in C. Peterson (ed.), Juristische Theoriebildung und rechtliche Einheit (Lund 1993), pp. 69, 70–79
68. Schroder, Recht, pp. 92–200, 244–249, 266–271.
69. Koschaker, Europa, p. 258.
70. O. Bähr, “Besprechung des Entwurfs eines bürgerlichen Gesetzbuches für das Deutsche Reich” (1889) 30 Kritische Vierteljahresschrift 326
71. and, in a similar vein, O. von Gierke, Der Entwurf eines bürgerlichen Gesetzbuches und das deutsche Recht (Leipzig 1889), pp. 3, 80.
72. See F. Schmidt, “The German Abstract Approach to Law” (1965) 9 Scandinavian Studies in Law 133, 136–137, 146.
73. Dawson, Oracles, p. 460.
74. See also Lawson, Common Lawyer, p. 53: “It is really an advanced text-book, very like the great books on Pandekten, a philosophical system reduced to statutory form, coherent and rigorous”.
75. O. Bähr, reviewing Jhering's “Scherz und Ernst in der Jurisprudenz” (1885) in O. Bähr, Gesammelte Aufsätze, vol. I (Leipzig 1895), pp. 453, 461.
76. Koschaker, Europa, pp. 103–104
77. speaks of a “book of authority”. Cf. R. Schröder, “Die deutsche Methodendiskussion um die Jahrhundertwende: Wissenschaftliche Präzisierungsversuche oder Antworten auf den Funktionswandel von Recht und Justiz” (1988) 19 Rechtstheorie 323, 326.
78. P. Stein, “Judge and Jurist in the Civil Law: A Historical Interpretation” (1985) 46 Louisiana L.Rev. 241, 253.
79. For the period before Windscheid see R. Scheuermann, Einflüsse der historischen Rechtsschule auf die oberstrichterliche gemeinrechtliche Zivilrechtspraxis bis zum Jahre 1861 (Berlin/NewYork 1972), pp. 46–58, 73, 113–114.
80. K. Binding, “Strafgesetzgebung, Strafjustiz und Strafrechtswissenschaft in ihrem normalen Verhaltnis zu einander” (1881) 1 Zeitschrift für die gesamte Strafrechtswissenschaft 4, 29.
81. R.S. Turner, “University Reformers and Professorial Scholarship in Germany 1760–1806” in L. Stone (ed.), The University in Society, vol. II: Europe, Scotland, and the United States from the 16th to the 20th Century (Princeton 1975), pp. 495, 495–498, 515–531.
82. C.F. von Savigny, Vom Beruf unsrer Zeit für Gesetzgebung und Rechtswissenschaft (Heidelberg 1814), p. 146.
83. See the contributions in H. Coing and W. Wilhelm (eds.), Wissenschaft und Kodifikation des Privatrechts im 19. Jahrhundert (Frankfurt 1974).
84. B. Windscheid, “Die geschichtliche Schule in der Rechtswissenschaft” (1878) in B. Windscheid, Gesammelte Reden und Abhandlungen (P. Oertmann ed.) (Leipzig 1904), pp. 66, 76
85. with respect to the impending codification of German private law. For further references on this “pandectification” of the Codes see R. Zimmermann, Roman Law, Contemporary Law, European Law: The Civilian Tradition Today (Oxford 2000), pp. 6–8.
86. M. Stolleis, “Zur Bedeutung der Rechtswissenschaft für die Dynamik der Rechtsordnung im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert”, in S. Dauchy et al. (eds.), Auctoritates: Xenia R.C. van Caenegem oblata—Law Making and its Authors, (Brussels 1997), pp. 118, 124–128.
87. For a different view see R. Smend, “Der Einfluβ der deutschen Staats- und Verwaltungsrechtslehre des 19. Jahrhunderts auf das Leben in Verfassung und Verwaltung” (1939) 4 Deutsche Rechtswissenschaft 25–39.
88. This expression is used by G.F. Puchta, Vorlesungen über das heutige römische Recht, vol. I (A.A.F. Rudorff ed.), 4th ed. (Leipzig 1854), p. 42.
89. Savigny, Beruf, pp. 12–13
90. C.F. Savigny, System des heutigen Römischen Rechts, vol. I (Berlin 1840), pp. 13–18, 45–49.
91. Koschaker, Europa, pp. 211, 257 thus suggests to speak of “professors' law”.
92. Savigny, System I, pp. 46–47: “so dass auch aus der Wissenschaft als solcher eine neue Art der Rechtserzeugung unenthaltsam hervorgeht”, 89
93. Puchta, Vorlesungen I, p. 41: “So ist die Wissenschaft nicht bloβ eine receptive Thätigkeit (Interpretation der Gesetze und des Gewohnheitsrechts), sondern auch eine productive. Sie ist selbst eine Rechtsquelle”.
94. Windscheid, “Geschichtliche Schule”, p. 77 characteristically states that every code and every single statute expects “help and support” of those who “have the vocation for recognising its content and applying it”.
95. Savigny, System I, pp. xx, xxiv-xxvii, 88–89, 189
96. Savigny, Beruf, pp. 126–130.
97. C.F.W. von Gerber, System des Deutschen Privatrechts, 2nd ed. (Jena 1850), p. 276.
98. See, also, Savigny, System I, p. 66 who recognises statutes, custom and “scientific law” as sources of law
99. H. Thöl, Einleitung in das deutsche Privatrecht (Göttingen 1851), p. 138: “Legal science is a source of law. It brings out legal norms which were missing before, thus it creates law”.
100. Wieacker, History, pp. 341–349.
101. Cf. Koschaker, Europa, pp. 118, 248–253
102. Wieacker, History, pp. 61–65, 120–126, 239–256
103. D. von Stephanitz, Exakte Wissenschaft und Recht: Der Einfluβ von Naturwissenschaft und Mathematik auf Rechtsdenken und Rechtswissenschaft in zweieinhalb Jahrtausenden (Berlin 1970)
104. Schröder, Recht, pp. 91–92, 167–186.
105. For this paragraph see M. Reimann, “Nineteenth Century German Legal Science” (1990) 31 Boston College L.Rev. 837, 846–894.
106. See the references provided by M. Herberger, “Beziehungen zwischen Naturwissenschaft und Jurisprudenz in der ersten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts” (1983) 6 Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte 79, 81–82.
107. Savigny, System I, p. xxxvi, 10, 214.
108. R. Jhering, “Unsere Aufgabe” (1857) 1 Jahrbücher für die Dogmatik des heutigen römischen und deutschen Privatrechts 1, 16, 19
109. P. Laband, Das Staatsrecht des deutschen Reiches, vol. I, 2nd ed. (Freiburg 1887), p. xi: “The construction of legal institutions, the tracing of specific legal rules back to more general concepts, on the one hand, and the deduction from these concepts of implicit legal effects, on the other, are the scientific tasks of the dogmatics of a certain positive legal system”.
110. C.F.W. von Gerber, Grundzüge eines Systems des deutschen Staatsrechts, 2nd ed. (Leipzig 1869), Preface, p. 28: “reines Rechnen mit Begriffen”.
111. See already Savigny, Beruf, p. 29.
112. Jhering, “Aufgabe”, 8–9.
113. Puchta, Vorlesungen I, p. 39, as quoted in n. 54 above.
114. This is taken up by Jhering, “Aufgabe”, 3–4, 7, 8–9
115. H. Dernburg, Pandekten, vol. I, 6th ed. (Berlin 1900), p. 82 still maintains “that the law is a system which has the capability to complete itself from within”.
116. For further references as to the “productive” method in the writings of Puchta, Jhering, Gerber and Laband see W. Wilhelm, Zur juristischen Methodenlehre im 19. Jahrhundert: Die Herkunft der Methode Paul Labands aus der Privatrechtswissenschaft (Frankfurt 1958), pp. 8- 11, 76–77, 88–89, 111 n. 98, 112–116, 133–136, 146–149
117. for commercial law see J. Rückert, “Handelsrechtsbildung und Modernisierung des Handelsrechts durch Wissenschaft zwischen 1800 und 1900” in K.O. Scherner (ed.), Modernisierung des Handelsrechts im 19. Jahrhundert (Heidelberg 1993), pp. 19, 23–24, 42–66.
118. E. Schrader, Die prätorischen Edicte der Römer auf unsere Verhältnisse übertragen (Weimar 1815), p. 50: “Schöpfer und Bildner”.
119. In a similar vein Jhering, “Aufgabe”, 11.
120. Cf. S. Vogenauer, “Learning and Lawmaking in Germany Today”, forthcoming.