I, James Lee Mathews--Marcus MInucius Audens,do hereby solemnly swear to
uphold the honor of Nova Roma, and to act always in the best interests
of the people and the Senate of Nova Roma.
As a Magistrate of Nova Roma. I Marcus Minucius Audens swear to honor
the Gods and Goddesses of Rome in my public dealings, and to pursue the
Roman Virtues in my public and private life.
I, Marcus Minucius Audens, swear to uphold and defend the Religio Romana
as the State Religion of ova Roma and swear never to act in a way that
would threaten its status as the State Religion
I, Marcus Minucius Audens, swear to protect and defend the Constitution
of Nova Roma.
I, Marcus Minucius Audens, further swear to fulfill the obligations and
responsibilities of the office of Praetor to the best of my abilities.
On my honor as a Citizen of Nova Roma, and in the presence of the Gods
and Goddesses of the Roman people, and by their will and favor, do I
accept the position of Praetor and all the rights and privileges,
obligations and responsibilities attendant thereto.
My friends I am just back from a weekend re-enactment event in Wayne,
New Jersey so I hope you will forgive my tardy Oath. I am most pleased
to be honored by your faith in me and by the assurance that you believe
that I can do the job that needs to be done.
To those who urged me to run for this office, and all those who
supported me during this campaign, I will to thank most heartily. Over
the next few days I intend a thank you message to each of those, but I
am most sensitive to your kindness and good will. For those in NR who
did not support my candidacy, I pledge to work for the good of NR to the
best of my ability, ad to work with all those who are current
Magistrates in the completion of the work before us.
Lastly, I would like to thank my friend Q. Fabius Maximus, for a worthy
contest in which I was kept on my toes at all times. He, as I
expected,waged a hard fought campaigns, and has once again proven
himself to have a clear understanding of the issues, and a determination
of will that is so valuable i Nova Roma, I thank him for a campaign of
issues, and I ferverently hope that we may still work together in the
future, as we have in the past.
Vale, Citizens of Nova Roma;
Very Respectfully;
Marcus Minucius Audens
Praetor. .
|
I thought the readership on this list might find the
review of this recent work useful. Please note that
this review is copyrighted.
L. Licinius Varro Murena
> x-post from H-Net and ASLH Legal History Discussion
> list <a href="/post/novaroma?protectID=103180051106119135032082190036" >--------W@--------</a>
>
> H-NET BOOK REVIEW
> Published by H-LAW (October 1999)
>
> Peter Stein. _Roman Law in European History_.
> Cambridge, New York, and
> Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1999. x +
> 137 pp. Table, map,
> bibliographical references, and index. USD49.95 /
> 35.00 Pounds Sterling
> (hardback), ISBN 0 521 64372 4; USD18.95 / 11.95
> Pounds Sterling (paper),
> ISBN 0 521 64379 1.
>
> Reviewed for H-LAW by David V. Snyder,
> &-------- href="/post/novaroma?protectID=114166018009248091090158164208130012136105139046209" >david.snyder@--------&--------a>
> Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, Cleveland State
> University
>
>
> ROMAN LAW AFTER THE FALL OF ROME
>
> Every good ghost story deserves a good storyteller,
> and the story Peter
> Stein sets out to tell is, as Vinogradoff said, a
> ghost story. [1] In
> _Roman Law in European History_, a master gives his
> readers both an
> introduction to the law of ancient Rome and an
> account of how that law
> lived on, well after the demise of the ancient
> society. For students and
> for scholarly beginners, this short book is an
> excellent way to learn the
> story and to understand its importance.
>
> There is no better time for the story to be told.
> The European movement
> has sparked interest in the period when Europe was
> unified under ancient
> Rome. The movement has also instigated a search for
> a _ius commune_, or
> common law of Europe, revived from the Middle Ages
> (see p. 130). Projects
> aimed at unifying the private law of Europe flourish
> now.[2] As
> international trade grows, European notions of
> private law are creeping
> into the law of several common-law countries.[3]
> Understanding European
> law and the forces that made it is as essential as
> ever. Roman law is one
> of the most important of those forces -- perhaps the
> defining force.
> _Roman Law in European History_ allows its readers
> to see how Roman law has
> shaped European law, even into our own times.
>
> Professor Stein's book shows its readers how that
> process took place. The
> work starts with a substantive chapter on ancient
> law (for which many will
> be grateful -- often such books assume the reader
> will already know Roman
> law).[4] Then, after a moment spent on the barbarian
> codes, Professor Stein
> takes the reader into the heart of medieval legal
> development, including
> the rediscovery of the Digest, the _studium_ at
> Bologna, and the ensuing
> schools of glossators and commentators. Church,
> empire, and canon law are
> discussed, as are post-medieval developments.
> Humanism and the scientific
> movement in law bring the story to codification and
> last, to the present.
>
> This version of the story is straightforward and
> chronological. The text
> speaks not only to the well-prepared but also to
> those whose recall of
> European history is spotty or nonexistent. To help
> place the story,
> references to familiar names and events are included
> (such as Brutus's
> assassination of Julius Caesar, p. 14). The text
> tries to take into
> account the reader who reads only English, with
> explanations of linguistic
> derivations (p. 3) and helpful translations of names
> (p. 67). [5]
>
> Although it is a summary that is mindful of the
> uninitiated, this small
> book manages not to sacrifice the rigorous or the
> scholarly. Especially
> important is the book's emphasis on legal method and
> legal procedure.
> Professor Stein explains how the law grew through
> interpretation and
> juristic opinion (pp. 7-13) in a system of case law
> and disputation (pp.
> 17, 18). These modes of legal development resonate
> well for the modern
> reader, who is likely to recognize at least some of
> these elements in
> current legal systems. Professor Stein also exposes
> the beauty of
> classical legal reasoning, explaining how Gaius's
> insight allowed
> obligations to be seen not only as the debt of one
> party but as the asset
> of the other party. The reader begins to understand
> how legal categories
> change and grow, with consequent impact on everyday
> legal ideas like
> contracts and torts (p. 20). This is the stuff of
> law. This exposition
> helps us see its timelessness.
>
> Perhaps most significantly, Professor Stein does not
> neglect procedural
> innovations and their effect. He introduces the
> _cognitio_ procedure, for
> instance, in the chapter on ancient law (p. 23),
> thus laying the
> groundwork for his discussion later of the
> Romano-canonical procedure (pp.
> 57-59). The latter procedure underlies some of the
> hallmark traits of
> current civil law, including the inquisitorial
> procedure and the exaltation
> of academic jurists (see pp. 59, 90). The book
> also explains how
> procedure affects both legal method and substantive
> law. To take the
> _cognitio_ example again, Professor Stein shows how
> the new procedure led
> from orality to writing (p. 23), and how the decline
> of the formulary
> system "led to a loss in the precision of the law
> itself" (p. 25). The
> impact of such changes can be hard to see,
> especially for those without a
> background in law, but the book meets that problem
> with clear, concrete
> examples (pp. 25-26). By the time later procedural
> changes are addressed,
> the reader is prepared to think about process in a
> careful, and
> appropriately lawyerly, way.
>
> An accessible introductory work that is historically
> and legally rigorous
> is especially welcome. As recent scholarship has
> shown, American lawyers
> and judges have often relied on (not necessarily
> accurate) ideas of Roman
> law in proposing legal changes in the United
> States.[6] With Roman law, it
> is too easy to be ignorant or mistaken; coming to
> terms with Roman law can
> seem a laborious task. [7] _Roman Law in European
> History_ can
> familiarize readers with fundamental ideas and can
> guide the curious to the
> first rank of accepted scholarship. The book is a
> major contribution in
> this regard, as many library shelves tend toward
> outdated or obsolescent
> textbooks when it comes to Roman law.
>
> An English version of Professor Stein's work[8] is
> all the more valuable
> because few books in English focus on the life of
> Roman law after the fall
> of Rome. Vinogradoff's small collection of lectures
> is one. Nice though it
> was, Vinogradoff's work is aged. He wrote when the
> German Civil Code (BGB)
> was still new, and its supersession of the Roman
> law of Germany was but
> recent. [9] More recent books aim to cover broader
> topics; none focus on
> the life and afterlife of Roman law. Although it
> shows the importance of
> Roman law for civil-law systems, Alan Watson's _The
> Making of the Civil
> Law_ (1981) ranges across many aspects of such
> systems instead of
> concentrating on Roman law in particular. Historical
> textbooks also spread
> themselves more widely, such as the textbook on
> _European Legal History_
> from Glasgow[10] and Manlio Bellomo's _The Common
> Legal Past of Europe,
> 1000-1800_ (1991). Moreover, the latter abstracts
> and adapts the basic
> story to fit around the author's argument, and
> interesting though the
> argument is, Professor Bellomo's book is not the
> straightforward
> chronological account of Professor Stein. Franz
> Wieacker's work is a more
> elaborate endeavor that requires a serious resolve
> from those who
> undertake it, and although it includes European
> history, it is centered
> around the German experience.[11]
>
> The value of this new book is not reduced simply
> because a reviewer would
> make decisions that are different from the author's.
> This reviewer might
> have given more space to the role of commerce (which
> is discussed on pp.
> 87, 121) and the governmental or constitutional
> implications of Roman law
> (see p. 91). In addition, the debate about the
> morality _vel non_ of Roman
> law [12] might have been mentioned in a couple of
> places (pp. 24, 121).
> Still, these are minor differences in perspective.
> This reviewer could
> spot no errors beyond the typographical (p. 33
> (Theodora died in 548, not
> 448)).
>
> _Roman Law in European History_, unsurprisingly, is
> a solid and reliable
> guide. Although it takes the form of a summary and
> aims at clear exposition
> rather than extended argument, a learned and
> insightful synthesis is
> essential for telling the story well. A short work
> on Roman law in
> European history is no small undertaking. While the
> story is a good one,
> it is not simple. We must see the unifying
> influence of Roman law in
> European history, but we also need to understand how
> Roman law can be a
> political tool with a potential for fragmentation
> (p. 118). As we hear
> these debates continuing,[13] we learn to think
> again of the story of Roman
> law and its afterlife.
>
>
> NOTES
>
> [1]. _See_ PAUL VINOGRADOFF, ROMAN LAW IN MEDIEVAL
> EUROPE 13 (Speculum
> Historiale and Barnes & Noble 1968) (1929). The
> work was first published
> in 1909. _Id._ at vii, 5.
>
> [2]. A couple of the more prominent include the
> PRINCIPLES OF EUROPEAN
> CONTRACT LAW (Ole Lando & Hugh Beale eds., 1995) and
> TOWARDS A EUROPEAN
> CIVIL CODE (A.S. Hartkamp et al. eds., 1994).
>
> [3]. _See, e.g.,_ Convention on Contracts for the
> International Sale of
> Goods, Apr. 11, 1980, 19 I.L.M. 668. An example of
> a provision with a
> Continental flair is article 46(1) ("buyer may
> require performance by the
> seller"), establishing specific performance as an
> ordinary rather than
> extraordinary remedy.
>
> [4]. _See_ VINOGRADOFF, _supra_ note 1, at 13.
> Similar in their omission
> of substantive chapters on ancient law are MANLIO
> BELLOMO, THE COMMON LEGAL
> PAST OF EUROPE: 1000-1800, at ix (Lydia G. Cochrane
> trans., Catholic Univ.
> of Am. Press 1995) (2d ed. 1991), O.F. ROBINSON et
> al., EUROPEAN LEGAL
> HISTORY: SOURCES AND INSTITUTIONS (2d ed. 1994),
> and FRANZ WIEACKER, A
> HISTORY OF PRIVATE LAW IN EUROPE (WITH PARTICULAR
> REFERENCE TO GERMANY)
> (Tony Weir trans., Clarendon
> Press 1995) (1967).
>
> [5]. The text is perhaps not as uniformly friendly
> to the monoglot as some
> might wish, and sometimes titles could be translated
> to aid the English
> reader (pp. 94, 100, 107). Although suggestions for
> further reading are
> appropriately multilingual, a summary work such as
> this one might indicate
> the language of a source if the language is not
> apparent from the citation.
> (See p. 69 citation of L. Schmugge, "Codicis
> Justiniani et Institutionum
> baiulus," _Ius Commune_ 6 (1977).)
>
> [6]. _See_ Shael Herman, _The Fate and Future of
> Codification in America_,
> 40 AM. J. LEGAL HIST. 407, 408 (1996); Andrew P.
> Morriss, _Decius S.
> Wade's_ The Common Law, 59 MONT. L. REV. 225 (1998);
> _see also _ Andrew P.
> Morriss, "This State Will Soon Have Plenty of Laws":
> Lessons from One
> Hundred Years of Codification in Montana_, 56 MONT.
> L. REV. 359, 383 (1995).
>
> [7]. _See_ Alan Watson, _The Origins of the Code
> Noir Revisited_, 71 TUL.
> L. REV. 1041, 1055 (1997).
>
> [8]. The book was originally published as ROMISCHES
> RECHT UND EUROPA
> (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag
> 1996).
>
> [9]. _See_ VINOGRADOFF, _supra_ note 1, at 11.
>
> [10]. _See_ ROBINSON, _supra_ note 4.
>
> [11]. _See_ WIEACKER, _supra_ note 4. Perhaps also
> worth mentioning are
> two works that have not yet reached this reviewer:
> THOMAS GLYNN WATKIN, AN
> HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION TO MODERN CIVIL LAW is
> announced for October 1999
> from Ashgate, and MAURIZIO LUPOI, THE ORIGINS OF THE
> EUROPEAN LEGAL ORDER
> (Adrian Belton trans., 1999) was ordered from
> Cambridge University Press
> months ago by nearby libraries, but the book has not
> yet surfaced. The
> Italian version has proven difficult to obtain from
> American libraries.
>
> [12]. _See, e.g.,_ James Q. Whitman, _The Moral
> Menace of Roman Law and
> the Making of Commerce: Some Dutch Evidence_, 105
> YALE L.J. 1841 (1996)
> ("Did Roman law represent a kind of moral menace in
> premodern Europe,
> encouraging commercialism, greed, and
> exploitativeness, and fostering a
> lifeless 'rationalism'? In one version or another,
> this idea has been
> accepted by Europeans for centuries.").
>
> [13]. _See_ Ugo Mattei, _The Issue of European
> Civil Codification and
> Legal Scholarship: Biases, Strategies, and
> Developments_, 21 HASTINGS
> INT'L & COMP. L. REV. 883, 889-90 (1998).
>
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