Table Of ContentThis content downloaded from 132.174.254.159 on Fri, 11 Dec 2015 19:54:59 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
The Common
Legal Past of Europe
This content downloaded from 132.174.254.159 on Fri, 11 Dec 2015 19:54:59 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
STUDIES IN MEDIEVAL AND EARLY
MODERN CANON LAW
Kenneth Pennington, General Editor
EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD
Robert L. Benson, University of California, Los Angeles
Uta-Renate Blumenthal, The Catholic University of America
Richard Helmholz, University of Chicago
Stephan Kuttner, University of California, Berkeley
John E. Lynch, The Catholic University of America
Robert Somerville, Columbia University
Brian Tierney, Cornell University
This content downloaded from 132.174.254.159 on Fri, 11 Dec 2015 19:54:59 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Canon Law
Volume 4
MANLIO BELLOMO
The Common
Legal Past of Europe
1000-1800
TRANSLATED BY
LYDIA G. COCHRANE
The Catholic University of America Press
Washington, D.C.
This content downloaded from 132.174.254.159 on Fri, 11 Dec 2015 19:54:59 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Originally published as L'Europa del diritto comune by
II Cigno Galileo Galilei, Rome, copyright © 1988, 1989.
This translation published by permission.
Copyright © 1995
The Catholic University of America Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements
of American National Standards for Information Science-Perma
nence of Paper for Printed Library materials, ANSI Z39.4-8-1984-.
@
Library ofC ongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bellomo, Mantio.
[L'Europa del diritto comune. English]
The common legal past of Europe : 1000--1800/ Mantio Bellomo;
translated by Lydia G. Cochrane.
p. cm. - (Smdies in medieval and early modem canon law)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
J. Law-Europe-History. I. Title. II. Series. KJI4-7.B4-513 1995
34-9.4---dC20
[3++]
94--17652
ISBN 0-8132-0813-0 (cloth).-ISBN 0-8132-0814--9 (pbk.)
This content downloaded from 132.174.254.159 on Fri, 11 Dec 2015 19:54:59 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
to my wife
to my children
This content downloaded from 132.174.254.159 on Fri, 11 Dec 2015 19:54:59 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
This content downloaded from 132.174.254.159 on Fri, 11 Dec 2015 19:54:59 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Contents
Foreword by Kenneth Pennington ix
Preface to the American Edition xi
Preface to the 1991 Edition xv
Preface to the First Edition XVll
I. National Codifications: Triumph and Crisis 1
2. Per pugnam sine iustitia: An Age without Jurists 34-
3. Ius commune in Europe 55
4. Ius proprium in Europe 78
5. The University in Europe and the Ius commune 112
6. Legal Science: Forms of Exposition and
Techniques of Diffusion 126
7. The System of the Ius commune 149
8. In Time and Space 203
Bibliographical Note 237
Index 24-1
Vll
This content downloaded from 132.174.254.159 on Fri, 11 Dec 2015 20:00:26 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
This content downloaded from 132.174.254.159 on Fri, 11 Dec 2015 20:00:26 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Foreword
With vigor and passion rarely found in a scholarly work, Manlio
Bellomo introduces new vocabulary and a sweeping new interpreta
tion of Western European legal history. He wrote his history oflaw
for Italian law students. This English edition will make it available for
students in the Anglo-American legal tradition.
This book is a textbook, but a textbook with a sharply argued thesis
that will interest scholars and students. Bellomo begins by describing
a ''wave of codification" that swept over Europe in the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries. He contends that codification has proven to be
an imperfect instrument with which to foster legal reform and en
courage flexibility in a legal system. Europe's reliance on codification
has introduced legal ambiguity, rigidity, and uncertainty into all the
European legal systems. He believes that a new common law for all
of Europe-a political process now underway in the European Com
mo'; Market-would provide a much better vehicle for legal change
and development.
From the modem age Bellomo looks back to when Europe had a
common law that transcended national and legal boundaries. This
system of law reigned from the twelfth to the seventeenth century.
He tells the story of the birth and evolution of that common law-a
story that Bellomo thinks could provide a model for how a European
common law might be born again. The term "common law" sounds
strange to most English-speaking historians when applied to conti
nentallegal systems. We speak of common law as being the legal sys
tem that evolved in England from the eleventh century to the present.
This historical fact and terminology introduces problems for English
ix
This content downloaded from 132.174.254.159 on Fri, 11 Dec 2015 20:08:53 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
