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Legal Growth Through Evolution: Comment On Puritan Revolution And English Law, William Hamilton Bryson
Legal Growth Through Evolution: Comment On Puritan Revolution And English Law, William Hamilton Bryson
Law Faculty Publications
Professor Harold Berman has presented the fascinating thesis that a people's religion influences their laws and that the Puritan religious revolution of seventeenth century England introduced Calvinist ideas into Anglo-American jurisprudence. I fully agree with Professor Berman's observations that religious beliefs and a sense of moral obligation to others are some of the motivations of, or at least influences upon, legal growth. Economic aggrandizement is not the only motivation of the human race. Religion has had a direct effect upon social and political institutions.
The Use Of Roman Law In Virginia Courts, William Hamilton Bryson
The Use Of Roman Law In Virginia Courts, William Hamilton Bryson
Law Faculty Publications
By statute, the courts of Virginia are required to decide cases according to the principles of the English common law. However, they are not forbidden to resort to any other legal system where the common law of England is silent. Moreover, when the English courts themselves have no English law on a particular point, they often look to the Roman law in its ancient or its current form for guidance. Therefore, it is not unreasonable for Virginia courts to do likewise, and in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, in fact, they did. The purpose of this essay is to consider …