34 RENAISSANCES

Canon Law which had been worked out at Bologna on the mw!r! c»f a
pagan Roman Civil Law in order to give a Papal Church the victory over
an abortive Western resuscitation of the Roman Empire, In the modern
chapter of Western history the Canon Law continued to play a major
part in Western life only in so far as its practical application* in the
spheres of administration and finance were presned into the service of
the parochial secular states which boisterously held the Ktagc in thin
noisy 'modern' act of a Western tragi-comedy,1

This Modern role of the Canon Law wan, however, UH unobtrusive us
it was influential, and the legal triumph that attracted alt the echit \vaa
the 'reception' of the Justinianean Roman Law in one parochial ntate
after another of a now rapidly and widely expanding Western body
social. In the Western Civilisation's Kuropeuu homclamtw a emujuerMg
Roman Law overlcapt an intractable England to wmi upon Scut html;4
but the winning of this outpost in a European (UtinM 77wA' \VUH merely
the prelude to a Transoceanic expansion. In the New World of the
Americas, the Spanish Crown was as much indebted to the faithful
services of its civil lawyers for its hard-won sixteenth-century victory
over the truculent Castilian amqidst adores as the Homun See juu! been
to the services of its canonists for its thirteenth-century victory over the
Hohenstaufen, In the New World of South Africa, Hutch eyJmimtH,
planted there after the 'reception' of the Roman Law in their mother
country, gave Justinian a fresh footing on u Continent from whose
northern extremity he had been evicted a thoummd yearn earlier by the
artificers of an Islamic Law which hud entered Egypt ami the Maghrib
in the train of seventh-century Arab Muslim conquerors,

The Islamic Law, like the Roman Law, hat! its renaissances in the

1 If, at first sitfht, it might seem surprhintf that it Mhmiltl hnv«* J»ri*« frMwihlr thw* *o
turn an oecumenical Canon Law to account for the hrnHit u< ptmu htwl »*** uUt Mnim
that were the Civil Law'u nurnlinus, un cx[vhuiutit»n nj' \\\\*\ iu>j>turuf riiijjittrt 11 in iu*
found in an illuminating pajwnjjfc of Chrintophrr ItawNtm'* wliittntt ttml thv W*»r *'/
Western Culture (London 1050^ Shced & Ward), mi. J-u 5 aiml 4,17:

'While the Umvernity of Pari» throughout th** MidiUr Au;rt>* ww* rmnrntittHv w tlfri»flil
institution, Hologna was largely « lay univrr«ity wlirre ilit* Jnwyt-iw ttiut ulluwlw wtwt
pkyed .such a large part in the government nt'tht* JuUiin rinVn iri'rtvrtl thrit rtttuitftutit

'No doubt the ticvcUipment of the HtuUy of thf CHWW l««w %'hivh VS-BH »*«** i«tnl wMi
the work of Cinuiun about 1140 made Bul(j«ntt un ft(Uttlly iiujtonsuS *f»iur t»t ej(*iuit»u
for the administrators and lawyers of the Mftiisfvul Church. Hut it w*m m tt «*t l»*ml oi

.

Roman Law that Bologna firat became funumit in th*> il«yu rtf Iriifrum (nwti
1130), and it was the civilians, not the cttnonUtu, who M«t the ntBiuUrd ami drfrrjiuhe
the course of studies, . . ,

'Th« fact that [the! work [of actually «unplyin» the Mrdiacv*! Churvh with J*»
organisation] wa« done by men trained in the name Mt'h<u4 ttrtil the *H>UP {nuUfitin* »« ilm
civilians who during the »amo period were <>r«uni*in« »nd fttti«»n«H»iinn the Mr»(UvviiS
State waa of the first importance for the hUtory (if Wmtrrn itmiiuition*; nm) if wttit in
the life of the Italian cities that thin proce»B of imer*t?Uon w«» t\w*\ v*it«t»trtp, T}»r mien
and officials of the City-State and the •iiininiNt»tt»rN «f tho Church w««rt» tlrnwu from
the same classes, [were] educated in the name univcr-tit ten, mul nhiirrd thr «timr inirt!rf«unl
background, BO that there was a continual prucwiu of nmtunl cfitii'i*m whi«ih MtitiHilm»4
the Krowthof an educated public opinion, tuc-h an did not v«»t rxixj in Nofthrrti Kurt*n«.'

a 'It is clear that the Common Law of Scotland i» in mn»Ulttf#hJ* rttp»mir«f derived
from the Civil Lawj to a lc»i extent, but in Important imrtkuUm, from thw (fenim L*w.
Though there was probably no period at which the Civil Law w*i wvounttfti purt «»f th*
law of Scotland, y«t that law. ae explained and in «om« reipteti «mend#d by tht f5ut«?h
and French commentators of the sixteenth and i«v«nteenth c«nturi*i, i» (he huHii of th*
Scots law of contract and of property, apart from feudal conveyancing* (OJnug, W, M«»
and Henderson, R. C.5 Introduction to tht Law o$ Seotl*wtt jrd ed, {Edinburgh
vjrreen), p. 8).