SAVIGNY, FRIEDRICH 'KARL TON, an illustrious writer on Roman jurisprudence, descended from a French Calvinistic family, that had emigrated to Germany in 1622, to avoid religious persecution, was born at Frankfort on Feb. 21, 1779. He studied at Marburg, and took his degree in 1800, after which he commenced a series of lectures on juridical subjects, which were attended by a numerous auditory. Struck, in his expo sition of the digest, with the divergehce existing between the text and the commentaries on the theory of possession, he composed in masteirly treatise, Das Becht des Besitzes, in which the Roman law is disengaged from the extraneous elements introduced into it by Germanic law, common usage, and the misapprehensions of commentators. Its merit was quickly recognized, and Savigny received the most advantageous offers from different universities, which, however, he declined, iu order to prosecute researches in the libraries of France and Germany, with a view to a historical development of the glosses of commentators. He was assisted in this laborious undertaking by his pupil, Jakob Grimm, and his young wife; a daughter of the poet Clem. Brentano, and Bettina von Arnim. Appointed professor of law at Landshut in 1808, he was called, two years afterward, to Berlin, on the reorganization of the university, and there he continued to lecture with unbroken success for a period of 32 years, in the course of which lie filled various important offices in the university and the state, and died Oct. 25, 1861, at the
age of 82. Savigny is the virtual founder of the new historical school of writers upon jurisprudence, although it is but fair to admit that Hugo and Schlosser had preceded him in the same direction. The essential idea of this school is, that " law" or " right" is not an abstract and absolute rule, manifesting itself under the same fornis in allsoun tries, but that it is one of the forces of society. with which it changes, according to fixed laws of development that are beyond the caprices of the day. This idea, when worked out historically, has produced the most important and original results, and may even be said without exaggeration to have regenerated the science of jurisprudence Savigny's principal writings are: Yom Berufe unserer Zeit fur Gesetzgebung and Reehtswissensehaft (Heidelb. 1815); Geschkhte des Ronzisehen Rechts im Mittelalter (6 vols. Ileidelb. 1826-31); System des heutigen ROmischen Reads (8 vols., Berl. 1840-48); Das Obligatione» recht (1851 —53), mid Vertnisehte Schrtften (5 vols. Berl. 1850), a collection of essays which had origi nally appeared in the Zeitsehrift fur Historische Rechtswissensehaft, an elsewhere.