Roman judges, case law, and principles of procedure

Law and History Review

Volumn 22, Issue 2, 2004, Pages 243-275

  Metzger, Ernest ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN   (United Kingdom)

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EID: 60950649385     PISSN: 07382480     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/4141647     Document Type: Article

References (198)

1. There is a short discussion, with literature, of Roman law as a living source of authority in Andrew Lewis, "Roman Law in the Middle of Its Third Millennium," Current Legal Problems 50 (1997): 414-17.
2. Shilliday v. Smith, 1998 Sess. Cas. 725
3. On McDyer and the use of Roman law in Scotland, see Tammo Wallinga, "Effusa vel deiecta in Rome and Glasgow," Edinburgh Law Review 6 (2002): 117-23.
4. The best examples of this are not blind applications of Roman rules, but demonstrations of how Roman law achieves something the modern law for some reason does not. See Alan Rodger Mrs. Donoghue and Alfenus Varus," Current Legal Problems (1988): 1-22
5. Peter Birks, "Harassment and Hubris. The Right to an Equality of Respect," The Irish Jurist (n. s. ) 32 (1997): 1-45.
6. The view that the study of Roman law today is largely historical is discussed by Lewis, Roman Law," 414-19.
7. But others wish the situation were different. Wieacker had hopes that legal history could be conceived in such a way that it remained part of legal science. He had in mind a mostly doctrinally oriented historical study. See Franz Wieacker, A History of Private Law in Europe, trans. T. Weir (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), 336-40.
8. Zimmermann's view is similar to Wieacker's. See, e. g. , Reinhard Zimmermann, "Savigny's Legacy: Legal History, Comparative Law, and the Emergence of a European Legal Science," Law Quarterly Review 112 (1996): 576-605.
9. Similarly: Reinhard Zimmermann, "Roman and Comparative Law: The European Perspective (Some Remarks apropos a Recent Controversy)," Journal of Legal History 16 (1995): 26.
10. Jolowicz would be sympathetic to Zimmermann's view. H. F. Jolowicz, "Utility and Elegance in Civil Law Systems," Law Quarterly Review 65 (1949): 322-36.
11. Zimmermann discusses the point at length, but does not attribute the return of historical Roman law solely or even predominantly to codification. Reinhard Zimmermann, Roman Law, Contemporary Law, European Law: The Civilian Tradition Today (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 46-52.
12. As opposed to, for example, the history of the ideas or the sources themselves.
13. See Peter Stein, Roman Law in European History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 73
14. M. H. Hoeflich, "Law and Geometry: Legal Science from Leibniz to Langdell," American Journal of Legal History 30 (1986): 96-109
15. A common illustration of this is the use of "maxims," which, in their original context, were narrow explanations of rulings, not generalized principles. See Peter Stein, "Civil Law Maxims in Moral Philosophy," Tulane Law Review 48 (1974): 1076.
16. Buckland made pandectist scholarship a special target: "German writers often seem to attribute to Roman law rules and modes of thought which are the product of later ages. " W. W. Buckland, "Wardour Street Roman Law," Law Quarterly Review 17 (1901): 179.
17. Several examples are given in Buckland, "Wardour Street Roman Law," 179-92
18. and W. W. Buckland, "More Wardour Street Roman Law: The actio de in rem verso," Law Quarterly Review 31 (1915): 193-216.
19. See also Alan Watson, "Illogicality and Roman Law," Israel Law Review 7 (1972): 14
20. (= Alan Watson, Legal Origins and Legal Change [London: Hambledon Press, 1991], 251)
21. ("[T]he usefulness of Roman law for later ages, coupled with its enforced isolation from other systems of antiquity, has often led to an exaggerated respect for it, and to its being regarded as well-nigh perfect, immutable, fit for all people"); Francis de Zulueta, The Roman Law of Sale (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1945; reprinted 1957), 25
22. ("So long as the Corpus Iuris was in force as actual law, a harmonious doctrine had to be extracted from the texts, even at the cost of forced interpretations . . . "); H. J. Wolff, Roman Law: An Historical Introduction (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1951), 219-20
23. ("[That excerpts from the Digest] had to be taken for authoritative statements of valid law compelled the Pandectists to assume too conservative an attitude regarding the sources"). On the gradual break of legal history from legal science, see Mathias Reimann, "Nineteenth-Century German Legal Science," Boston College Law Review 31 (1990): 871-73
24. Wieacker, History, 330-34.
25. The discovery of Gaius's Institutes in 1816 is the most obvious example, but there are many other examples of discoveries that have significantly added to our knowledge of Roman procedure: lex de Gallia Cisalpina (Roman Statutes, ed. Michael Crawford [London: Institute of Classical Studies, 1996], vol. 1, no. 28), discovered in 1760
26. the Fragmenta Vaticana (P. E. Huschke, E. Seckel, and B. Kuebler, Iurisprudentiae Anteiustinianae Reliquias [Leipzig: Teubner, 1927], 2/2:191-324), discovered in 1821
27. lex Coloniae Genetivae (Roman Statutes, ed. M. Crawford, vol. 1, no. 25), discovered in 1870
28. the Este Fragment (Roman Statutes, ed. M. Crawford, vol. 1, no. 16), discovered in 1880
29. collections of waxed tablets from Pompeii, Puteoli, and Herculaneum, discovered in the last one hundred years, for which see Peter Gröschler, Die tabellae-Urkunden aus den pompejanischen und herkulanensischen Urkundenfunden (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1997)
30. The most well-known example of this, which considerably affects procedure, is the supposed "intuition" of the Roman jurists. The idea that a Roman jurist, as a member of a professional class, had special powers of discerning the law was put forward by Savigny and followed by some even in modern times. See Max Kaser, "Zur Methode der römischen Rechtsfindung," in Ausgewählte Schriften (Camerino: Jovene, 1976), 1:10-14
31. A. Arthur Schiller, "Jurists' Law," in An American Experience in Roman Law (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1971), 159
32. and the critical comments by Laurens Winkel, "The Role of General Principles in Roman Law," Fundamina 2 (1996): 108-9
33. and Wolfgang Waldstein, "Topik und Intuition in der römischen Rechtswissenschaft," Festgabe für Arnold Herdlitcza, ed. Franz Horak and Wolfgang Waldstein (Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 1972), 248-49.
34. Another example, argued persuasively by William Turpin in a recent study, is the idea that the cognitio procedure was introduced as part of a coherent program of law reform undertaken in early imperial Rome, an idea that Turpin attributes in part to Savigny. William Turpin, "Formula, cognitio, and Proceedings extra ordinem," Revue Internationale des Droits de l'Antiquité, 3rd ser. , 46 (1999): 501-2.
35. Henry Sumner Maine, Dissertations on Early Law and Custom (London: John Murray, 1883), 389.
36. And without resorting to anachronism, Watson could not have argued that Maine was wrong. Alan Watson, "The Law of Actions and the Development of Substantive Law in the Early Roman Republic," Law Quarterly Review 89 (1973): 387-92.
37. Winkel, "The Role of General Principles," 108: "Since Hoetink it has generally been accepted that the use of anachronistic concepts is inevitable, but they have to be realised and justified. "
38. H. R. Hoetink, "Les Notions Anachroniques dans l'Historiographie du Droit," Tijdschrift voor Rechtsgeschiedenis 23 (1955): 1-20.
39. See Max Kaser, Das römische Zivilprozessrecht, 2nd ed. rev. Karl Hackl (Munich: Beck, 1996), § 30 II.
40. XII Tab. I, 1-3 (Roman Statutes, ed. M. Crawford, 2:584-88).
41. Cicero, pro Quinctio 61.
42. See the authorities cited in Ernest Metzger, "The Current View of the Extra-judicial vadimonium," Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte (rom. Abt. ) 117 (2000): 140-41 nn. 23-25.
43. M. A. von Bethmann-Hollweg, Handbuch des Civilprozesses (Bonn: A. Marcus, 1834), 1:247
44. idem, Der römische Civilprozeß (Bonn: A. Marcus, 1865), 2:199.
45. Much of the subsequent literature followed Bethmann-Hollweg's lead and declared that lawsuits, at least up to Cicero's time, were begun consensually rather than by summons. The literature is cited in Metzger, "The Current View," 142-43 n. 29
46. but Kelly can be quoted as an example: "Towards the end of the Republic actual in ius vocatio came to be generally replaced, as a means of initiating litigation, by vadimonium . . . ; this is the procedure found, for example, in all the speeches of Cicero. " J. M. Kelly, Roman Litigation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966), 6-7.
47. See Giovanni Pugliese, Il Processo Civile Romano (Milan: Giuffrè, 1963), 2:401
48. André Fliniaux, Le Vadimonium (Paris: Arthur Rousseau, 1908), 105
49. Bethmann-Hollweg, Der römische Civilprozeß, 2:199.
50. (Ulpian 5 ed. )
51. and the authorities cited in Ernest Metzger, "The Case of Petronia Iusta," Revue Internationale des Droits de l'Antiquité 47 (2000): 159 n. 30, 160 n. 34.
52. see Roman Statutes, ed. M. Crawford, 1:466).
53. Lenel believes it is possible that, in Rome, the penalty for refusing to promise to reappear was the sale of the refusing party's goods. Otto Lenel, Das Edictum Perpetuum, 3rd ed. (Leipzig: B. Tauchnitz, 1927; reprinted Aalen: Scientia, 1956), 80-81 n. 11.
54. The possible contents of the edict are discussed by David Johnston, "Vadimonium, the lex Irnitana, and the edictal commentaries," in Quaestiones Iuris, ed. Ulrich Manthe and Christoph Krampe (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2001), 119-20.
55. See Kaser/Hackl, Zivilprozessrecht, § 42 II.
56. The change of view was prompted by the discovery of memoranda that record promises to appear in a place other than the magistrate's court. See J. G. Wolf, "Das sogenannte Ladungsvadimonium," in Satura Roberto Feenstra, ed. J. A. Ankum et al. (Fribourg: Editions Universitaires Fribourg Suisse, 1985), 63-65.
57. Wolf says that in ius vocatio probably continued to be used to bring the defendant from the meeting place to the magistrate. Wolf's suggestion is accepted in the newest edition of Kaser: Kaser/Hackl, Zivilprozessrecht, 231.
58. Another possibility is that in ius vocatio was used as a threat to induce the making of the promise. Teresa Giménez-Candela, "Notas en torno al 'vadimonium,'" Studia et Documenta Historiae et Iuris 48 (1982): 135, 165.
59. Duncan Cloud has argued recently that at least some promises were for appearance at the court; these would not require the use of in ius vocatio. Duncan Cloud, "Some Thoughts on vadimonium," Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte (rom. Abt. ) 119 (2002): 159.
60. See Metzger, "The Current View," 133-78, arguing that this practice is poorly supported in the evidence.
61. When preparing this material the following work was not available to me: Umberto Vincenti, ed. , Il Valore dei Precedenti Giudiziali nella Tradizione Europea (Padova: Cedam, 1998).
62. However, based on the summary in Labeo 47 (2001): 451-67, my arguments would not change.
63. There are useful, general discussions of the formulary procedure in David Johnston, Roman Law in Context (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 112-18
64. Ditlev Tamm, Roman Law and European Legal History (Copenhagen: DJØF, 1997), 53-64
65. Francis de Zulueta, The Institutes of Gaius (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1953), 2:250-54.
66. But see Bruce Frier, The Rise of the Roman Jurists (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), 227 ("[Judges] probably also supplied written copies to the litigants").
67. Recorded judgments that survive are rare. The most outstanding example of such a record under the formulary procedure is probably the Tabula Contrebiensis (87 BC) from Botorrita in Spain, which recites two formulae and adds a judgment at the end. See J. S. Richardson, "The Tabula Contrebiensis: Roman Law in Spain in the Early First Century B. C. ," Journal of Roman Studies 73 (1983): 34-41
68. Peter Birks, Alan Rodger, and J. S. Richardson, "Further Aspects of the Tabula Contrebiensis," Journal of Roman Studies 74 (1984): 45-73.
69. This decision does not actually preserve the aspect of a Roman formula (though the beginning mimics a demonstratio; see Gaius, Institutes 4. 40), but it does use some of the technical language of the formulary procedure.
70. See Paul M. Meyer and Ernst Levy, "Sententia des iudex datus in einem Erbrechtsprozeß unter Claudius," Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte (rom. Abt. ) 46 (1926): 283-85
71. See, e. g. , Mario Talamanca, Istituzioni di Diritto Romano (Milan: Giuffrè, 1990), 23
72. Frier, Roman Jurists, 229-31
73. Alan Watson, Law Making in the Later Roman Republic (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974), 171-72
74. John P. Dawson, The Oracles of the Law (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Law School, 1968), 100-107
75. W. W. Buckland and Arnold D. McNair, Roman Law and Common Law: A Comparison in Outline, 2nd ed. rev. F. H. Lawson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1952), 6-10
76. Fritz Schulz, History of Roman Legal Science (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1946), 92.
77. Max Kaser, "Das Urteil als Rechtsquelle im römischen Recht," in Festschrift Fritz Schwind, ed. Rudolph Strasser et al. (Vienna: Manzsche Verlags- und Universitätsbuchhandlung, 1978), 115-30
78. (= Max Kaser, Römische Rechtsquellen und angewandte Juristenmethode [Vienna: Böhlau, 1986], 42-64).
79. A similar list is given in Digest 1. 1. 7 (Papinian 2 def. )
80. and Justinian, Institutes 1. 2. 3.
81. Cicero, de Inventione 2. 22. 68
82. Quintilian, Institutio Oratorio 7. 4. 6.
83. Quintilian, Institutio Oratorio 5. 2. 1.
84. Kaser, "Das Urteil als Rechtsquelle," 118-21.
85. See Digest 1. 2. 2. 6 (Pomponius ench. ).
86. Similarly, Schulz, Roman Legal Science, 24.
87. For a summary of views on the ius respondendi, which may have given special force to the opinions of some jurists, see Geoffrey MacCormack, "Sources," in A Companion to Justinian's Institutes, ed. Ernest Metzger (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998), 11-14.
88. Kaser, "Das Urteil als Rechtsquelle," 127.
89. contra Okko Behrends, "Die Causae Coniectio der Zwölftafeln und die Tatbestandsdisposition der Gerichtsrhetorik," Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte (rom. Abt. ) 92 (1975): 171.
90. See also Schulz, Roman Legal Science, 24 ("[The jurists'] principle was to wait till the case occurred, and to feel their way from case to case").
91. Cf. O. E. Tellegen-Couperus, "The Role of the Judge in the Formulary Procedure," Journal of Legal History 22/2 (2001): 2 ("According to prevailing doctrine . . . Justinian's Digest does not reflect the legal practice of the classical period but a scientific, theoretical kind of literature that was at most inspired in terms of style and content by the questions that were submitted to the jurists in practice").
92. Honoré, writing on jurists' law: The doctrine that precedents are binding is not an essential feature of a system based on precedent. . . . What is necessary for a system of precedent is that arguments from example should be admissible in the sense that an appeal to a previous instance or example is an adequate justification for a decision, not necessarily that it compels decision. A. M. Honoré, "Legal Reasoning: Rome and Today," South African Law Journal 91 (1974): 89-90.
93. H. F. Jolowicz, "Case Law in Roman Egypt," Journal of the Society of Public Teachers of Law 14 (1937): 1-15.
94. Jolowicz reviews some of his arguments in idem, "Precedent in Greek and Roman Law," Bullettino dell'Istituto di Diritto Romano 46 (1939): 394-405
95. idem, Lectures on Jurisprudence, ed. J. A. Jolowicz (London: Athlone, 1963), 220-23
96. H. F. Jolowicz and Barry Nicholas, Historical Introduction to the Study of Roman Law, 3rd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), 354 n. 4.
97. Jolowicz, "Case Law," 15.
98. Jolowicz and Nicholas, Historical Introduction, 354 n. 4.
99. Jolowicz later used stronger language for this important conclusion. In the second edition of the Historical Introduction, he said somewhat equivocally that precedent played "some" part. H. F. Jolowicz, Historical Introduction to the Study of Roman Law, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1954), 569
100. (appendix to 365 n. 2).
101. The edition that followed appeared after Jolowicz's death and was edited by Barry Nicholas. Nicholas possibly amended "some part" to "a part" in light of Jolowicz's very strong statement, published in 1963: "[I]t is clear that the influence of actual decisions in the development of the law was at all times considerable. " Jolowicz, Lectures on Jurisprudence, 223.
102. Jolowicz, "Case Law," 5.
103. Jolowicz's interpretation of the papyrological evidence is bolder than that of Weiss, who had treated most of the same material twenty-five years earlier. Egon Weiss, "Recitatio und Responsum im römischen Provinzialprozeß, ein Beitrag zum Gerichtsgebrauch," Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte (rom. Abt. ) 33 (1912): 212-39.
104. (Ulpian 4 off. pro. )
105. and Code 8. 52. 1 (AD 224).
106. Jolowicz goes further than this, arguing that decisions were made on the authority of prior judgments - even single judgments - and not necessarily on the authority of any custom revealed in the judgments. Katzoff has treated the same material more recently and agrees with Jolowicz that decisions were sometimes based on prior judgments. Ranon Katzoff, "Precedents in the Courts of Roman Egypt," Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte (rom. Abt. ) 89 (1972): 290 ("We can definitely assert that judges did occasionally base their decisions on the precedents cited to them").
107. Similarly, in his address to the Riccobono Seminar: "It is difficult to believe that a system of quoting precedents would have arisen in Egypt if it had been contrary to Roman ideas about the administration of justice. There was, as I have tried to show, nothing in classical Greece out of which such a system could have arisen. There is no reason to believe that the native Egyptians had anything of the sort. " Jolowicz, "Precedent," 404.
108. See Paul Collinet, "Le rôle des juges dans la formation du droit romain classique," in Recueil d'études sur les sources du droit: en l'honneur de François Gény (Paris: Librairie du Recueil Sirey, 1934), 23-31.
109. Jolowicz's suggestion is therefore significant primarily for what it suggests about the development of jurists' law and less significant for anything it might say about the character of that law. Cf. the conclusion of Tellegen-Couperus, "The Role of the Judge," 5
110. I would include here Collinet, "Le rôle des juges"
111. Tellegen-Couperus, "The Role of the Judge" (whose argument is described below, note 70)
112. Dawson, The Oracles of the Law, 104.
113. Of course, the explanations may simply be wrong, whence the lack of attention. Yet Schiller called Jolowicz's study "brilliant" and was generally enthusiastic about its conclusions; he noted that it had not provoked any discussion. A. Arthur Schiller, Roman Law: Mechanisms of Development (The Hague: Mouton, 1978), 267-68.
114. Katzoff, writing after Schiller and with Schiller's encouragement, accepts Jolowicz's general conclusion, but so far as I am aware he is the only one to do so. Katzoff, "Precedents," 291-92.
115. Tellegen-Couperus's argument is bolder than Jolowicz's because it links decisions directly to the writings of the jurists. She therefore confronts the common opinion on its own terms, asserting that decisions were indeed contributing content to jurists' law. Jolowicz, in contrast, more or less leaves it up to the reader to speculate by what means precedent played a role in the development of the law. What distinguishes Tellegen-Couperus's view from the usual view of responsa is her suggestion that the jurists (to some degree) took their cue from the judges, not the other way around. Compare Schulz, Roman Legal Science, 224-25
116. J. M. Kelly, Studies in the Civil Judicature of the Roman Republic (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), 75-76.
117. Tellegen-Couperus, "The Role of the Judge," 1-2, writes of "three assumptions," but the third assumption (that judgments were irrelevant to the development of the law) is intended to follow from the first two.
118. J. Q. Whitman, The Legacy of Roman Law in the German Romantic Era (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), 130.
119. G. F. Puchta, Cursus der Institutionen [Geschichte des Rechts bei dem römischen Volk, vol. 1], 9th ed. (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1881), 435: Es wäre . . . ein Irrthum, wenn man die römischen Judices mit den heutigen Geschwornen vergleichen, und sich vorstellen wollte, sie seien bloß mit der Untersuchung des Factischen beschäftig gewesen, die Rechtssätze seien ihnen durch das Verfahren in iure vorgezeichnet worden. . . . Der Magistrat entschied allerdings über die allgemeine rechtliche Begründung des Anspruchs, indem er die Klagen und Einreden zuließ, und das Iudicium ordnete, aber selbst bei der allereinfachsten Klage, der auf eine bestimmte geschuldete Geldsumme, konnte sich noch mancher Anlaß zu rechtlichen Fragen im Iudicium finden, noch mehr war dieß der Fall bei den Klagen, in welchen durch die Anweisung, zu untersuchen, was eine Partei der andern ex fide bona zu leisten habe, dem Richter ein weites Feld rechtlicher Erwägungen geöffnet war, und eben so bei dinglichen Klagen, z. B. der rei vindicatio, wo der Richter nur im allgemeinen angewiesen war, zu untersuchen, ob der Kläger Eigenthümer sei, wo also die ganze Rechtstheorie der einzelnen Erwerbsarten in Frage kommen konnte.
120. See Franz Wieacker, Römische Rechtsgeschichte (Munich: Beck, 1988), 1:667
121. Édouard Cuq, Les Institutions Juridique des Romains (Paris: Pion, 1902), 1:758-59
122. Julius Baron, Institutionen und Civilprozeß [Geschichte des römischen Rechts, vol. 1] (Berlin: Leonhard Simion, 1884), 354
123. Lord Mackenzie [Thomas MacKenzie], Studies in Roman Law, 4th ed. (Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons, 1876), 340.
124. Cf. Tellegen-Couperus, "The Role of the Judge," 11 n. 2.
125. See Patrick Colquhoun, A Summary of the Roman Civil Law (London: William Benning, 1849), 1:34 (The judge "judged principally of facts," but points of law must have arisen also).
126. Tellegen-Couperus, "The Role of the Judge," 1, 3-4.
127. Compare J. A. Crook, Legal Advocacy in the Roman World (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995), 175 n. 18 : "The claim . . . that unus iudex was not a lawyer needs re-phrasing: say, rather, he did not have to be, and there were no career judges. "
128. Arthur Engelmann, "Modern Continental Procedure," in A History of Continental Civil Procedure, ed. Arthur Engelmann et al. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1927; reprinted New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1969), 598, 606.
129. As in private law, both romanists and germanists were among the writers on procedure, and a rivalry existed. See K. N. Nörr, "Wissenschaft und Schriftum zum deutschen Zivilprozeß im 19. Jahrhundert," in Iudicium est actus trium personarum: Beiträge zur Geschichte des Zivilprozeßrechts in Europa (Goldbach: Keip, 1993), 147-49.
130. Engelmann, "Modern Continental Procedure," 543.
131. Giuseppe Chiovenda, "Roman and Germanie Elements in Continental Civil Procedure," in A History of Continental Civil Procedure, 78-79.
132. Bethmann-Hollweg's research program is summarized in Nörr, "Wissenschaft und Schriftum," 144-46
133. The most famous are A. W. Heffter, Institutionen des römischen und teutschen Civil-Processes (Bonn: Adolph Marcus, 1825)
134. F. von Keller, Der römische Civilprocess und die Actionen (Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, 1852)
135. and M. von Bethmann-Hollweg, Der Civilprozeß des gemeinen Rechts in geschichtlicher Entwicklung (Bonn: Adolph Marcus, 1864-74), 6 vols.
136. Nörr, "Wissenschaft und Schriftum," 146, 148-49.
137. R. W. Millar, "The Formative Principles of Civil Procedure," in A History of Continental Civil Procedure, 5-6 (first published in 1923).
138. Millar, "Formative Principles," 11-21
139. R. C. van Caenegem, History of European Civil Procedure [International Encyclopedia of Comparative Law, vol. 16, ch. 2] (Tübingen: Mohr, 1973), 14
140. Anke Freckmann and Thomas Wegerich, The German Legal System (London: Sweet & Maxwell, 1999), 142.
141. But see William B. Fisch, "The Influence of German Civil Procedural Thinking and of the ZPO in the United States," in Das Deutsche Zivilprozessrecht und seine Ausstrahlung auf andere Rechtsordnungen, ed. W. Habscheid et al. (Bielefeld: Gieseking, 1991), 400-415.
142. A good illustration of this is a joint project between UNIDROIT in Rome and the American Law Institute to harmonize procedural law at an international level, principally for trade matters. See Conference on the ALI-UNIDROIT Principles and Rules of Transnational Civil Procedure (London: Sweet & Maxwell, 2002).
143. Van Caenegem, History, 93.
144. Another example, from several decades earlier: when leading a ministry for the reform of Prussian laws in 1845, Savigny had prepared a set of discussion points for the reform of Prussian civil procedure. The "eighteen questions of principles" all draw on well-developed ideas. K. W. Nörr, "Die 18 Prinzipienfragen des Ministers Savigny zur Reform des preussischen Zivilprozesses," in Iudicium est actus trium personarum: Beiträge zur Geschichte des Zivilprozeßrechts in Europa (Goldbach: Keip, 1993), 181-85.
145. Leopold Wenger, Institutionen des römischen Zivilprozessrechts (Munich: Hochschulbuchhandlung Max Hueber, 1925), 184: Der Richter muß beide Teile hören, wenn diese oder ihre Patrone zu Vorträgen bereit sind. Es muß also jedem Teil die Möglichkeit gegeben sein, sich zu äußern. Das allein besagt der heute sog. Grundsatz des beiderseitigen Gehörs, nicht aber darf dieser Grundsatz etwa so gedeutet werden, daß der Richter nur urteilen dürfe, wenn sich beide Teile wirklich geäußert haben.
146. Elsewhere Wenger discusses whether the "Dispositionsmaxime" (the principle that a party has control over his own rights) or the "Offizialmaxime" (the principle that an official has control over the parties' rights) governed a Roman private lawsuit. Leopold Wenger, "Wandlungen im römischen Zivilprozessrecht," in Festschrift für Gustav Hanausek (Graz: Ulrich Mosers, n. d. ), 11-22.
147. van Caenegem, History, 14.
148. There is perhaps some danger in using the principles as a descriptive "shorthand. " Asser cites Kaser for the proposition that the principle of bilateral hearing is one of the principles the Romans "adhered strictly to" in the formulary procedure. Daan Asser, "Audi et alterem partem: A Limit to Judicial Activity," in The Roman Law Tradition, ed. A. D. E. Lewis and D. J. Ibbetson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 209 n. 4.
149. Erwin Seidl, Römische Rechtsgeschichte und römische Zivilprozessrecht (Cologne: Carl Heymann, 1962), 162 (The more the State takes over the administration of justice, the greater is the development of "Maximen, die auch noch das geltende Prozeßrecht beherrschen").
150. Similarly: Erwin Seidl, Rechtsgeschichte Ägyptens als römischer Provinz (Saint Augustine: Hans Richarz, 1973), 110-14.
151. For a description of the virtues of this principle in modern German procedure, see Gerhard Luke and Alfred Walchshöfer, Münchener Kommentar zur Zivilprozeßordnung (Munich: Beck, 1992), § 128. 2.
152. Seidl, Römische Rechtsgeschichte, 168.
153. This explanation is different from Seidl's but, as with Seidl's explanation, it is difficult to know how much "deliberateness" to attribute to the fact that presentations in Roman trials were made orally. Could the limited means of writing be a factor? It would be difficult to make a "written submission" of points and arguments with the usual means of recording matters for litigation: the waxed, wooden tablet. It was disposable, not permanent, and easily forged. For a description see Giuseppe Camodeca, Tabulae Pompeianae Sulpiciorum (TPSulp. ): Edizione critica dell'archivio puteolano dei Sulpicii (Rome: Quasar, 1999), 1:31-36.
154. Bethmann-Hollweg, Civilprozeß, 1:75, 2:161.
155. Bethmann-Hollweg, Civilprozeß, 2:161-64.
156. See Freckmann and Wegerich, German Legal System, 128-29
157. Some trials, contrary to Bethmann-Hollweg, were indeed held in private houses. See Kelly, Civil Judicature, 110-11
158. Crook, Legal Advocacy, 136.
159. Adolf Baumbach, Wolfgang Lauterbach, et al. , eds. , Zivilprozessordnung, 59th ed. (Munich: Beck, 2001), § 128(1) ("Unmittelbarkeit bedeutet: Es ist vor dem Gericht selbst zu verhandeln, nicht vor einem Dritten oder vor einem anderen Gericht, das nur dasjenige übermitteln kann, das vor ihm geschehen ist").
160. Wenger, Institutionen, 194
161. Engelmann, "Modem Continental Procedure," 606
162. Millar, "Formative Principles," 50, 63
163. Bethmann-Hollweg, Civilprozeß, 2:587.
164. The one-day rule is discussed at length in Ernest Metzger, A New Outline of the Roman Civil Trial (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), 101-22.
165. See A. H. J. Greenidge, The Legal Procedure of Cicero's Time (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1901), 271
166. F. L. von Keller, Der römische Civilprocess und die Actionen, 6th ed. rev. A. Wach (Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, 1883), 337-38.
167. Peter Arens and Wolfgang Luke, Zivilprozeßrecht: Erkenntnisverfahren, Zwangvollstreckung, 7th ed. (Munich: Beck, 1999), 22.
168. Bethmann-Hollweg, Der römische Civilprozeß, 1:184 (emphasis added): Der Zweck dieser äußersten Zeitbeschränkung lag . . . überwiegend wohl darin, daß aus der zusammenhängenden, lebendigen und im Bewußtsein zu überschauenden Entfaltung der Sache, wie sie das gedrängte Plaidoner Einer Sitzung gewährt, die wahrste Überzeugung des Richters sich bildet, weshalb ja auch unsre Geschwornengerichte annähernd denselben Grundsatz befolgen.
169. Baron, Institutionen, 425 (emphasis added): Die gesammte Verhandlung muß auch jetzt an Einem Tage durchgeführt werden, damit bei dem Mangel schriftlicher Aufzeichnung das Unheil unter dem frischen Eindruck des Gehörten ergehe; ist dies nicht möglich, so wird vom Geschwornen die Ampliatio ausgesprochen, und in einem neuen Termin . . . die Verhandlung von Neuem begonnen, namentlich das thatsächliche Material nochmals entwickelt.
170. I suspect that the first to announce the rule was Huschke, in an 1826 commentary on Cicero, pro Tullio: P. E. Huschke, "M. Tullii Ciceronis orationis pro M. Tullio quae exstant cum commentariis et excursibus," in Analecta Litteraria, ed. I. G. Huschke (Leipzig: Hartmann, 1826), 106-7.
171. and Heinrich Eduard Dirksen, Uebersicht der bisherigen Versuche zur Kritik und Herstellung des Textes der Zwölftafelfragmente (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrich, 1824).
172. Rein, writing after Keller but before Bethmann-Hollweg, is also an early authority, though he mentions the rule only in passing. Wilhelm Rein, Das Privatrecht und der Zivilprozeß der Römer, 2nd ed. (Leipzig: F. Fleischer, 1858; reprinted Aalen: Scientia, 1964), 884 and n. 2, 921 n. 1. I suggest below that the endurance of this rule in the literature is due to the impetus of the Historical School.
173. Censorinus, de Die Natali 24
174. Varro, de Lingua Latino 6. 5.
175. See Censorinus, de Die Natali 24
176. J. A. Crook, "Lex Plaetoria (FIRA no. 3)," Athenaeum (n. s. ) 62 (1984): 592-95.
177. The newest text of the lex Plaetoria is in Roman Statutes, ed. M. Crawford, vol. 2, no. 44.
178. Cf. Joseph Georg Wolf, "Diem diffindere: Die Vertagung im Urteilstermin nach der lex Irnitana," in Thinking Like a Lawyer, ed. Paul McKechnie (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 34-36.
179. Cicero, pro Tullio 6
180. Tacitus, Dialogus 19. 2
181. Cicero, pro Quinctio 34.
182. See Metzger, New Outline, 118-19.
183. David says the rule existed "pour convaincre un juge hésitant. " Jean-Michel David, Le Patronat Judiciaire au Dernier Siècle de la République Romaine (Rome: École Française de Rome, 1992), 7.
184. See Reimann, "Nineteenth-Century German Legal Science," 879-81
185. Joachim Rückert, "The Unrecognized Legacy: Savigny's Influence on German Jurisprudence after 1900," American Journal of Comparative Law 37 (1989): 133
186. Hermann Kantorowicz, "Savigny and the Historical School," Law Quarterly Review 53 (1937): 332-33.
187. Friedrich Carl von Savigny, "Vom Beruf unsrer Zeit für Gesetzgebung und Rechtswissenschaft," in Thibaut und Savigny: zum 100jährigen Gedächtnis des Kampfes um einheitliches bürgerliches Recht für Deutschland, 1814-1914, ed. Jacques Stem (Berlin: Vahlen, 1914) (reproduction of the first edition of 1814), 145-46 ("[Die] Annäherung der Theorie und Praxis ist es, wovon die eigentliche Besserung der Rechtspflege ausgehen muß, und worin wir vorzüglich von den Römern zu lernen haben: auch unsere Theorie muß praktischer und unsere Praxis wissenschaftlicher werden, als sie bisher war")
188. Zimmermann, "Savigny's Legacy," 584 ("A legal practice informed and sustained by legal scholarship, and an approach to legal scholarship that is always mindful of the fact that, ultimately, law serves an eminently practical function: that is what Savigny was aiming for").
189. The supposed opposition between theory and practice was resolved by the historical and systematic methods of the Historical School; the only real opposition was between historical and unhistorical methods. F. C. von Savigny, "Ueber den Zweck dieser Zeitschrift," Zeitschrift für geschichtliche Rechtswissenschaft 1 (1815): 14-15 ("[N]ur zwischen dem geschichtliche und ungeschichtliche waltet ein absoluter Gegensatz, das praktische geschäft hingegen kann mit dem feinsten wissenschaftlichen Sinn betrieben werden . . . ")
190. Heinz Mohnhaupt, "Richter und Rechtsprechung im Werk Savignys," in Studien zur europäischen Rechtsgeschichte, ed. Walter Wilhelm (Frankfurt-am-Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1972), 250-51.
191. Savigny, "Vom Beruf," 146.
192. Mohnhaupt, "Richter und Rechtsprechung," 260.
193. See Rudolph Sohm, Ludwig Mitteis, and Leopold Wenger, Institutionen: Geschichte und System des römischen Privatrechts, 17th ed. (Munich: Duncker & Humblot, 1923), 648
194. Ihering, Geist des römischen Rechts, 3:16.
195. In dieser Einrichtung sind zwei Vortheile enthalten: (1) es werden dadurch gewisse Bürger. . . zur Theilnahme an den öffentlichen Angelegenheiten herangezogen, und zwar nicht in der Weise des bloßen Stimmgebens sondern in derjenigen einer gründlichen geistigen Thätigkeit; (2) es wird dadurch dem Recht der Character der Volksthümlichkeit erhalten; denn der Geschworne bringt ohne Bedenken die im Volke lebenden Rechtsideen bei seinem Unheil zur Anwendung; . . . . Dabei verdient hervorgehoben zu werden, daß dem Römischen Geschworneninstitut die moderne Unterscheidung der sog. That- und Rechtsfragen unbekannt ist; der Römische Geschworne urtheilt sowohl über die That- wie über die Rechtsfragen; . . . . Similarly, James Muirhead, Historical Introduction to the Private Law of Rome, 3rd ed. rev. H. Goudy and A. Grant (London: A & C Black, 1916), 234: "[T]he gradual ascendancy and eventual unanimity of judicial opinion in the affirmative was but the expression of the general sentiment of the citizens of whom the judices were the represenatives. "
196. Sohm describes the two spheres in vivid language: The practical function of jurisprudence is to fit the raw material of law for practical use. For the law, as begotten by custom or statute, is but the raw material, and is never otherwise than imperfect or incomplete. . . . It is the function of jurisprudence to convert the imperfect and incomplete law which it receives at the hands of customs and statutes into a law which shall be complete and free from omissions. In other words, it is its function to transform the raw material into a work of art. Rudoph Sohm, The Institutes: A Textbook of the History and System of Roman Private Law, 3rd ed. trans. J. C. Ledlie (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1907), 28.
197. Ihering suggests that each suit presents a single question, to be answered yes or no: does the claim exist? Ihering, Geist des römischen Rechts, 3:21-23.
198. Similarly, Alan Watson, The Spirit of Roman Law (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1995), 39-40, 60.