W M Gordon, who retired from the Douglas Chair of Civil Law at the University of Glasgow in 1999, is well-known for his distinguished contribution to Roman law, legal history and land law.? He is the author of several books in these subject areas, but it is a mark of his international eminence that much of his prolific output has been published in a wide variety of journals and essay collections outside, as well as within, the UK.? This important new collection draws together in an accessible format much of his most important writing and, as such, will be in indispensable purchase for all those interested in these core areas of legal scholarship.

Born in Ireland in 1879, W.P.M. Kennedy was a distinguished Canadian academic and the leading Canadian constitutional law scholar for much of the twentieth century. Despite his trailblazing career and intriguing personal life, Kennedy's story is largely a mystery. Weaving together a number of key events, Martin L. Friedland's lively biography discusses Kennedy's contributions as a legal and interdisciplinary scholar, his work at the University of Toronto where he founded the Faculty of Law, as well as his personal life, detailing stories about his family and important friends, such as Prime Minister Mackenzie King. Kennedy earned a reputation in some circles for being something of a scoundrel, and Friedland does not shy away from addressing Kennedy's exaggerated involvement in drafting the Irish constitution, his relationships with female students, and his quest for recognition. Throughout the biography, Friedland interjects with his own personal narratives surrounding his interactions with the Kennedy family, and how he came to acquire the private letters noted in the book. The result is a readable, accessible biography of an important figure in the history of Canadian intellectual life.

Roman Law: An Introduction offers a clear and accessible introduction to Roman law for students of any legal tradition. In the thousand years between the Law of the Twelve Tables and Justinian's massive Codification, the Romans developed the most sophisticated and comprehensive secular legal system of Antiquity, which remains at the heart of the civil law tradition of Europe, Latin America, and some countries of Asia and Africa. Roman lawyers created new legal concepts, ideas, rules, and mechanisms that most Western legal systems still apply. The study of Roman law thus facilitates understanding among people of different cultures by inspiring a kind of legal common sense and breadth of knowledge. Based on over twenty-five years' experience teaching Roman law, this volume offers a comprehensive examination of the subject, as well as a historical introduction which contextualizes the Roman legal system for students who have no familiarity with Latin or knowledge of Roman history. More than a compilation of legal facts, the book captures the defining characteristics and principal achievements of Roman legal culture through a millennium of development.

Roman Law: An Introduction offers a clear and accessible introduction to Roman law for students of any legal tradition. In the thousand years between the Law of the Twelve Tables and Justinian's massive Codification, the Romans developed the most sophisticated and comprehensive secular legal system of Antiquity, which remains at the heart of the civil law tradition of Europe, Latin America, and some countries of Asia and Africa. Roman lawyers created new legal concepts, ideas, rules, and mechanisms that most Western legal systems still apply. The study of Roman law thus facilitates understanding among people of different cultures by inspiring a kind of legal common sense and breadth of knowledge. Based on over twenty-five years' experience teaching Roman law, this volume offers a comprehensive examination of the subject, as well as a historical introduction which contextualizes the Roman legal system for students who have no familiarity with Latin or knowledge of Roman history. More than a compilation of legal facts, the book captures the defining characteristics and principal achievements of Roman legal culture through a millennium of development.

Goethe is said to have likened the Roman civil law to a duck: sometimes it is visible, swimming prominently on the surface of the water, at other times it is hidden, diving amid the depths. but it is always there. This may be said to be true not only in continental Europe and Scotland, where Roman law has been a dominant influence, but also in England and the U.S.A., where Roman law has often informed and supplemented Common law. None of the great writers on Common law, with the exception perhaps of Coke, failed to take Roman law in to consideration, especially on the matters of legal theory. Indeed the differences between the two systems can easily be exaggerated. Ne one is better qualified to write on these matters than Peter Stein; this collection of his articles covers both the nature and the tradition of Roman law and ranges from classical to modern times. The Character and Influence of the Roman Civil Law includes discussions of the ethos and principles of Roman law and of their transmission and transformation in medieval and modern times. Attention is drawn to the working of Roman law in San Marinom which retains the uncodified ius commune.Civil lawyers in England whose work is examined include Vacarius, Thomas Smith and Thomas Legge. Roman law in Scotland is looked at in depth, with special consideration for the natural law tradtition there. A piece on the origin of the four stage theory of social development, which grew out of that tradition and was adopted by Adam Smith, appears for the first time. Finally Professor Stein shows the attraction of Roman law to lawyers in the U.S.A. when they were trying to establish their own legal system following Independence.

Great Christian Jurists and Legal Collections in the First Millennium is a systematic collection of essays describing how Christian leaders and scholars of the first millennium in the West contributed to law and jurisprudence and used written norms and corrective practices to maintain social order and to guide people from this life into the next. With chapters on topics such as Roman and post-Roman law, church councils, the papacy, and the relationship between royal and ecclesiastical authority, as well as on individual authors such as Lactantius, Ambrosiaster, Augustine, Leo I, Gelasius I, and Gregory the Great, this book invites a more holistic and realistic appreciation of early-medieval contributions to the history of law and jurisprudence for entry-level students and scholars alike. Great Christian Jurists and Legal Collections in the First Millennium provides a fresh look, from a new perspective, enabling readers to see these familiar authors in a fresh light.

It is widely recognized that Roman law is an important source of information about women in the Roman world, and can present a more rounded and accurate picture than literary sources. This sourcebook fully exploits the rich legal material of the imperial period - from Augustus (31 BCE - 14 CE) to the end of the western Roman Empire (476 CE), incorporating both pagan and Christian eras, and explaining the rights women held under Roman law, the restrictions to which they were subject, and legal regulations on marriage, divorce and widowhood.

`However one defines Man, the same definition applies to us all. This is sufficient proof that there is no essential difference within mankind.' (Laws l.29-30) Cicero's The Republic is an impassioned plea for responsible governement written just before the civil war that ended the Roman Republic in a dialogue following Plato. Drawing on Greek political theory, the work embodies the mature reflections of a Roman ex-consul on the nature of political organization, on justice in society, and on the qualities needed in a statesman. Its sequel, The Laws, expounds the influential doctrine of Natural Law, which applies to all mankind, and sets out an ideal code for a reformed Roman Republic, already half in the realm of utopia. This is the first complete English translation of both works for over sixty years and features a lucid Introduction, a Table of Dates, notes on the Roman constitution, and an Index of Names. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

The Roman Law of Obligations presents a series of lectures delivered by the late Peter Birks as an introductory course in Roman law. Discovered in complete manuscript form following his death, the lectures are published here for the first time. The lectures present a clear conceptual map of the Roman law of obligations, guiding readers through the institutional structure of contract, delict, quasi-contract, and quasi-delict. They introduce readers to the terminology needed to understand the foundations of Roman law, and the conceptual framework of the law of obligations that left an enduring legacy on European private law. The lectures offer an invaluable introduction to Roman private law for those coming to the subject for the first time. They will also make stimulating reading for academics and lawyers interested in Roman law, European legal history, and the lasting influence of Roman law on modern private law.

The Roman Law of Obligations presents a series of lectures delivered by the late Peter Birks as an introductory course in Roman law. Discovered in complete manuscript form following his death, the lectures are published here for the first time. The lectures present a clear conceptual map of the Roman law of obligations, guiding readers through the institutional structure of contract, delict, quasi-contract, and quasi-delict. They introduce readers to the terminology needed to understand the foundations of Roman law, and the conceptual framework of the law of obligations that left an enduring legacy on European private law. The lectures offer an invaluable introduction to Roman private law for those coming to the subject for the first time. They will also make stimulating reading for academics and lawyers interested in Roman law, European legal history, and the lasting influence of Roman law on modern private law.

What can we learn about the world of an ancient empire from the ways that people complain when they feel that they have been violated? What role did law play in people's lives? And what did they expect their government to do for them when they felt harmed and helpless? If ancient historians have frequently written about nonelite people as if they were undifferentiated and interchangeable, Ari Z. Bryen counters by drawing on one of our few sources of personal narratives from the Roman world: over a hundred papyrus petitions, submitted to local and imperial officials, in which individuals from the Egyptian countryside sought redress for acts of violence committed against them. By assembling these long-neglected materials (also translated as an appendix to the book) and putting them in conversation with contemporary perspectives from legal anthropology and social theory, Bryen shows how legal stories were used to work out relations of deference within local communities. Rather than a simple force of imperial power, an open legal system allowed petitioners to define their relationships with their local adversaries while contributing to the body of rules and expectations by which they would live in the future. In so doing, these Egyptian petitioners contributed to the creation of Roman imperial order more generally.

Was the Roman Empire just? Did Rome acquire her territories through just wars, and did Rome's rule exert a civilizing effect, ultimately beneficial for its subjects? Or was Roman imperialism a massive injustice - the bellicose conquest and absorption of countless peoples and large swaths of territory under false pretences, driven by greed and a lust for domination and glory? In The Wars of the Romans (1599), the important Italian jurist and Regius Professor of Civil Law at Oxford University Alberico Gentili (1552-1608) argues both sides of the debate. In the first book he lays out the case against the justice of the Roman Empire, and in the second book the case for.
Gentili's polemic and highly engaging work helped pioneer the use of Roman law and just war theory in what became a leading international law approach to the enduring questions of the justice of empire. Writing in the wake of the first wave of European colonial expansion in the Americas, and relying on models of the controversy about Roman imperialism from Cicero to Lactantius and Augustine, Gentili developed the arguments which were to become pivotal in normative debates concerning imperialism. In this work Gentili, a consummate Roman law scholar, frames the moral and practical issues in a combination of Roman legal terminology and the language of natural law, a combination which was to prove highly influential in the literature from Grotius onward on natural law, the law of nations and what eventually became international law.

In this book, Andrew Riggsby offers a survey of the main areas of Roman law, both substantive and procedural, and how the legal world interacted with the rest of Roman life. Emphasizing basic concepts, he recounts its historical development and focuses in particular on the later Republic and early centuries of the Roman Empire. The volume is designed as an introductory work, with brief chapters that will be accessible to college students with little knowledge of legal matters or Roman antiquity. The text is also free of technical language and Latin terminology. It can be used in courses on Roman law, Roman history, or comparative law, but it will also serve as a useful reference for more advanced students and scholars.

Born in Ireland in 1879, W.P.M. Kennedy was a distinguished Canadian academic and the leading Canadian constitutional law scholar for much of the twentieth century. Despite his trailblazing career and intriguing personal life, Kennedy's story is largely a mystery. Weaving together a number of key events, Martin L. Friedland's lively biography discusses Kennedy's contributions as a legal and interdisciplinary scholar, his work at the University of Toronto where he founded the Faculty of Law, as well as his personal life, detailing stories about his family and important friends, such as Prime Minister Mackenzie King. Kennedy earned a reputation in some circles for being something of a scoundrel, and Friedland does not shy away from addressing Kennedy's exaggerated involvement in drafting the Irish constitution, his relationships with female students, and his quest for recognition. Throughout the biography, Friedland interjects with his own personal narratives surrounding his interactions with the Kennedy family, and how he came to acquire the private letters noted in the book. The result is a readable, accessible biography of an important figure in the history of Canadian intellectual life.

Cicero's Topica is one of the canonical texts on ancient rhetorical theory. This is the first full-scale commentary on this work, and the first critical edition of the work that is informed by a full analysis of its transmission.

Scotland has a special claim for the attention of comparative lawyers, of legal historians, and of those who seek to identify a common core in European private law or to develop a new ius commune. For Scotland stands at the inter-section of the two great traditions of European law - of the law of Rome, received and developed in Continental Europe, and of the law which originated in England but was exported throughout the British Empire. In Scotland, uniquely in Europe, there is to be found a fusion of the civil law and the common law.

Scotland has a special claim for the attention of comparative lawyers, of legal historians, and of those who seek to identify a common core in European private law or to develop a new jus commune. For Scotland stands at the intersection of the two great traditions of European law-of the law of Rome, received and developed in Continental Europe, and of the law which originated in England but was exported throughout the British Empire. In Scotland, uniquely in Europe, there is to be found a fusion of the civil law and the common law. Law in Scotland has a long history, uninterrupted either by revolution or by codification. It is rich in source material, both printed and archival. Yet hitherto the history of legal doctrine has been relatively neglected. This work is the first detailed and systematic study in the field of private law. Its method is to take key topics from the law of obligations and the law of property and to trace their development from earliest times to the present day. A fascinating picture emerges. The reception of civil law was slow but profound, beginning in the medieval period and continuing until the eighteenth century. Canon law was also influential. This was flanked by two receptions from England, of Anglo-Norman feudalism in the twelfth century and beyond, and, more enduringly, of aspects of English common law in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In addition there was much that was home-grown. Over time this disparate mixture was transformed by legal science into a coherent whole.

This revised edition with new introduction of Andrew Lintott's classic book discusses the causes behind the violence which erupted periodically in Rome during the Republic. It examines the political conflict, violence, military insurrection, and authoritarian government of the Roman Republic.

This is a new book from an eminent and well-respected scholar. A work of reference; an essay in the analysis of style; a contribution to the prosopography of the late Roman quaestorship; a reflection on the fall of the western and the survival of the eastern Roman empire: the book combines all four. Using his innovative method of analysis, already successfully employed in his highly-acclaimed Emperors and Lawyers (2nd edn 1994, OUP), the author examines the laws of a crucial period of the late Roman empire (379-455 AD), a time when the West collapsed while the East survived. He allots the laws to their likely drafters and shows why the eastern Theodosian Code (429-438 AD), intended to restore the legal and administrative unity of the Roman empire, came too late to save the West. The accompanying Palingenesia on an accompanying disk will enable scholars to read the texts chronologically and to judge the soundness of the arguments advanced.

This is a new and thought-provoking look at law and marriage in late antiquity, dealing particularly with the legislation on marriage enacted by the Roman emperor Constantine. Though Constantine is usually accepted as being the first Christian emperor, Judith Grubbs argues here that the extent of Christian influence on his marriage legislation was limited. Her study of his laws against the background of both classical Roman law and early Christian attitudes toward marriage reveals much about contemporary behavior and belief in this period.

The common law of England and the United States and the civil law of continental Europe have a similar doctrinal structure, a structure not found in the English cases or Roman legal texts from which they supposedly descend. In this original and unorthodox study of common law and legal philosophy the author throws light on the historical origins of this confusion and in doing so attempts to find answers to many of the philosophical puzzles which contract lawyers face today. Reassessing the impact of modern philosophy upon contract law, the author concludes that modern philosophy having failed to provide a new basis for a coherent doctrinal system in the law of contract, the only hope for devising such a coherent system lies in rediscovering the neglected philosophy of Aristotle and Aquinas.

This book deals with the interconnection between the Brussels I Recast and Rome I Regulations and addresses the question of uniform interpretation. A consistent understanding of scope and provisions is suggested by the preamble of the Rome I Regulation. Without doubt, it is fair to presume that the same terms bear the same meaning throughout the Regulations. The author takes a closer look at the Regulations' systems, guiding principles, and their balance of flexibility and legal certainty. He starts from the premise that such analysis should prove particularly rewarding as both legal acts have their specific DNA: The Brussels I Recast Regulation has a procedural focus when it governs the allocation of jurisdiction and the free circulation of judgments. The multilateral rules under the Rome I Regulation, by contrast, are animated by conflict of laws methods and focus on the delimitation of legal systems. This fourth volume in the Short Studies in Private International Law Series is primarily aimed at legal academics in private international law and advanced students. But it should also prove an intriguing read for legal practitioners in international litigation. Christoph Schmon is a legal expert in the fields of Private International Law, Consumer Law, and Digital Rights. After serving in research positions at academic institutes in Vienna and London, he focused on EU policy and law making. He is appointed expert of advisory groups to the EU Commission.

From property law to delict and unjustified enrichment, this textbook focuses on those areas of Roman law that have been most influential on Scots law. By using this book, students will enter practice with a greater depth of understanding of the roots of modern Scots law, helping them to feel confident in using Roman materials when tackling today's legal problems.

Pliny the Younger (c. 60-112 C.E.)-senator and consul in the Rome of emperors Domitian and Trajan, eyewitness to the eruption of Vesuvius in 79, and early 'persecutor' of Christians on the Black Sea-remains Rome's best documented private individual between Cicero and Augustine. No Roman writer, not even Vergil, ties his identity to the regions of Italy more successfully than Pliny. His individuality can be captured by focusing on the range of locales in which he lived: from his hometown of Comum (Como) at the foot of the Italian Alps, down through the villa and farms he owned in Umbria, to the senate and courtrooms of Rome and the magnificent residence he owned on the coast near the capital. Organized geographically, Man of High Empire is the first full-scale biography devoted solely to the Younger Pliny. Reserved, punctilious, occasionally patronizing, and perhaps inclined to overvalue his achievements, Pliny has seemed to some the ancient equivalent of Mr. Collins, the unctuous vicar of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Roy K. Gibson reveals a man more complex than this unfair comparison suggests. An innovating landowner in Umbria and a deeply generous benefactor in Comum, Pliny is also a consul who plays with words in Rome and dispenses summary justice in the provinces. A solicitous, if rather traditional, husband in northern Italy, Pliny is also a literary modernist in Rome, and-more surprisingly-a secret pessimist about Trajan, the 'best' of emperors. Pliny's life is a window on to the Empire at its zenith. The book concludes with an archaeological tour guide of the sites associated with Pliny.

The Roman Empire was one of the largest and most enduring in world history. In his new book, distinguished historian W. V. Harris sets out to explain, within an eclectic theoretical framework, the waxing and eventual waning of Roman imperial power, together with the Roman community's internal power structures (political power, social power, gender power and economic power). Effectively integrating analysis with a compelling narrative, he traces this linkage between the external and the internal through three very long periods, and part of the originality of the book is that it almost uniquely considers both the gradual rise of the Roman Empire and its demise as an empire in the fifth and seventh centuries AD. Professor Harris contends that comparing the Romans of these diverse periods sharply illuminates both the growth and the shrinkage of Roman power as well as the Empire's extraordinary durability.