The revival of the study of the corpus furls civilis at the University of. Bologna and other seats Of learning toward the end of the Middle Ages produced a flow of knowledge in many streams. But human societies were becoming nationalistic and patriotic; the universities were cosmopolitan and scholastic, with little sympa thy for the new spirit that was actuating the nations of western Europe. It is not sur prising, therefore, that the product of the new learning was a groundwork of ideas rather than a body of laws; academical theorizing that led to nothing practical. Neither is it sur prising that the finest fruits of the legalistic renaissance were works on international, rather than civil, law. Grotius' treatise "De Mare Liberum" has its basis in the Roman law of the freedom of navigable waters; his "De Jure Bellum et Pace" is a negation of the Roman rule that enemy property (invaded territory included) is just as wild animals are—and, therefore, subject to capture and appropriation by the captor. The Reformation in Germany in its political aspects was mainly a struggle for legal order — on the part of the burgesses for a supreme imperial law; on the part of the peasants for liberation from feudal serfdom. The struggle was bootless. The corpus furls, indeed, became authoritative, when it was not in conflict with local law, but German peasants remained serfs for three more centuries. France, notwithstanding the consolidation of the monarchy, remained un der the curse of an anomalous and discord ant jurisprudence. The south continued to be the Pays du Droit Ecrit; the north, the Pays du Droit Coutumirr; but province differed from province. One influence might have been ex erted for betterment. The French lawyers had attained a political and social position beside the feudal nobility; -they were organized in great chartered corporations with large powers and larger claims; they excelled their compeers throughout Europe in the qualities of the ad vocate, legislator and judge; their generaliza tions displayed an elegance of diction and a refinement of logic, unexampled since the pass ing of the jurisconsults of ancient Rome. But not one venerable or lucrative quiddity 'would they sacrifice in the interest of legal and clarity. For the "law of nature') they de veloped an almost passionate admiration. It overlapped all provincial boundaries; it did not distinguish between noble and burgess, nor be tween burgess and peasant; it exalted • lucidity and system — and it did not commit its devotees in any specific improvement. Affecting to be lieve that the vices of the French law were in eradicable, the legal profession obstinately re-. sisted the reform of abuses. Montesquieu tried to instill a different spirit, but French law was to be purified in the fires of the Revolution.
English In England the evo lution of a homogeneous legal system was favored by the concentration of the law making power. As early as the 13th cen tury the common law was centralized in the King's Court; and it was the law spoken by the king's judges. There was no other school; and there was no other masters from whom it could be learned. The systematic study of the Roman civil law was discouraged, and, finally, its citation as precedent was interdicted. The courts, making law by working on material presented for their consideration, demanded skilful pleaders —and in the course of a few generations a learned profession arose and became established in the societies of the inns of court. The processes whereby the English law was adapted to the changing needs of society were much the same as those which had been employed in Rome a thousand years before. By the legal fiction of levying a fine and suing for a common re covery the strictest entail could be broken; by the transformation of a tenure in fee into an equitable use, an inalienable feudal benefice be came property, which could be conveyed by deed or devised by will; by the substitution of money for personal labor in the payment of rent, and the recognition of leases as freeholds, the tenants became freeholders and, conse quently, free men. The law did not permit
married women to own personal property; but equity enabled them to hold any kind of prop erty in trust for their own benefit, and to dis pose of the same at pleasure. The private law remained mostly unwritten until modern times. All the statutes enacted between the time of the Conquest and the time of the Com monwealth, embracing topics of the private law, would scarcely cover 30 printed pages of an ordinary law book. The Statute of Merton (1233) declared it to be the English law that children born out of wedlock could not be legitimized by the subsequent marriage of their parents. The Statute of Merchants (1285) au thorized the imprisonment of insolvent debtors, but it also provided that the goods of travelers who died while passing through England could not be seized and withheld from their heirs— in which respect English law was centuries in advance of that of the Continent. The guilds, generally speaking, were treated with consider ation, though there were several statutes pro hibiting and penalizing restraints of trade and combinations to unreasonably enhance prices. Artificers, however, received much unfriendly attention from the law-makers. In 1304 a com bination to bring about, by lawful means, an injury to a third person was declared con spiracy; in 1360 all ((alliances and be tween masons, carpenters, etc., were declared void; the act of 1452, empowering the Chan cellor to issue writs of proclamation against disturbers of the peace, and to punish disobe dience by outlawry, is believed to have orig inated the suppression of strikes by injunctive order. The Statute of Victuallers (1548), while it gave freedom of employment to skilled me chanics in any town, forbade artificers to form oath-bound confederacies not to work, or to make agreements among themselves as to hours of labor. In 1349, and persistently for 100 years thereafter, efforts were made to fix wages by law; and they were abandoned only when masters complained that they could get no servants unless they paid more than the statutory wage. Worst of all fared the agri cultural laborers or villeins. They were com mitted without bail by any justice of the peace for refusing to work. Wat Tyler's rebellion (1383) was a plebeian revolt, and among the demands of the rebels was one that labor in husbandry be commuted to a money rent. In part the demands were allowed. Villeins were thereafter paid wages, but the act of 1585 re stricted them to labor in their hundreds and required them to follow the calling of their fathers. Villeinage was formally abolished in 1425, but as late as 1574 commissioners were appointed by Queen Elizabeth to manumit bond men and bondwomen. The Statute of Labor, passed (1562) in the reign of Elizabeth, re red unmarried artisans with incomes of less 40 s. to serve at their handicrafts. Per sons under 30 having no trade could be com pelled to labor at the request of any person having an art or mystery; all persons between 12 and 60, not otherwise employed, might be compelled to labor at husbandry. Employment was for a year and masters could not dismiss, nor servants leave, without good cause. Un skilled and agricultural laborers could not de part from the parish without the certificate of a constable and two good citizens. The wages of artisans were fixed by justices of the peace. The statute against the monopolies by royal patent was passed in 1623, after 50 years of shilly-shallying by Elizabeth and James. Feudal tenures were abolished by a statute of Charles I.