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Full-Text Articles in Legal History
Adam Smith's Historical Jurisprudence And The "Method Of The Civilians", Ernest Metzger
Adam Smith's Historical Jurisprudence And The "Method Of The Civilians", Ernest Metzger
Ernest Metzger
Smith lectured in jurisprudence at the University of Glasgow from 1751 to 1764, and various records of these lectures survive. Since Smith never completed a treatise on law, these records are the principal source for his theory of lawmaking. In his final year at Glasgow, Smith undertook to reorganize the course of lectures: he began with a series of lectures on "forms of government," where formerly these lectures had fallen at the very end. He explained that his reorganized lectures followed the method of the civilians (i.e., contemporary writers on Roman law), and that this method was to be preferred. …
Remarks On David Daube’S Lectures On Sale, With Special Attention To The Liber Homo And Res Extra Commercium, Ernest Metzger
Remarks On David Daube’S Lectures On Sale, With Special Attention To The Liber Homo And Res Extra Commercium, Ernest Metzger
Ernest Metzger
This article discusses a collection of lecture notes on the Roman law of sale prepared by David Daube for an advanced course conducted at the University of Aberdeen from 1954 to 1955. The article considers in detail Daube’s lecture on the sale of the liber homo and res extra commercium in Roman law. An excerpt from that lecture is attached as an Appendix. His treatment of the subject is unfinished (and unpublished), though it is possible to see how his views might have developed. The final section offers an opinion on Daube’s approach to interpreting texts and its value to …
Civil Procedure In Classical Rome: Having An Audience With The Magistrate, Ernest Metzger
Civil Procedure In Classical Rome: Having An Audience With The Magistrate, Ernest Metzger
Ernest Metzger
During the classical period of Roman law, civil lawsuits were divided into two proceedings: a brief proceeding before the magistrate, who decided certain preliminary matters, and a longer proceeding before a judge, who tried the case. The first proceeding is said to take place “in iure,” which roughly means “in the magistrate’s court.” Unfortunately the figure “in court” has been understood too strictly to refer to the whole of the first phase, and this has given rise to the misunderstanding that the whole of the first phase took place in the magistrate’s presence. The better view is that the first …