The Legal Profession in the Twelfth Century
Before the twelfth century,
most clerical work was in the hands of ecclesiastics. This monopoly began to be broken with the renewed interest in Roman
law, which was mostly in the hands of laymen, especially in Italian
cities. In the words of historian
Sidney Packard:
The twelfth century is the first European century in
which law was a separate and recognized profession. The work of the civilians and canonists both in the elucidation
and the application of Roman law and the canons of the Church, together with
the less formal but equally seminal work of the officials in the customary law
courts (such as the itinerant justices under Henry II of
England), will seem to many on of the great achievements of the twelfth
century or even of all of medieval
European history[1].
The early medieval world was ruled, to
the extent that there was any rule by law,
by what is called customary law. This mostly verbal law was based on
Germanic traditions with some element of Roman law. There were urban, maritime and mining customary laws. During the twelfth century some of these
laws began to be written down. A good
example of this was the Customs of Barcelona. This process was often due to better trained
men becoming judges in customary courts or keeper of the records of these
courts. Some of the monarchs supported
this process, such as Henry II in England and Roger II in
Sicily.
The formalization of legal education was primarily the result of the leadership of Bologna. Law was initially taught there as a branch of grammar or rhetoric, but there appeared during the late eleventh and early twelfth century series of respected law professors that developed Bologna into the leading Law school. The most famous of these was Irnerius, who seems to have been the first to lecture on the entire corpus of Roman law. Irnerius appears had some of his education at Ravenna, the old imperial capital, where he was reputed to have been inspired by Justinian’s Corpus Juris Civilis[2].
John of Salisbury comments on the rule by law:
There is
wholly or mainly this difference between the tyrant and the prince: that the
latter is obedient to law, and rules his people by a will that places itself at
their service, and administers rewards and burdens within the republic under
the guidance of law in a way favorable to the vindication of his eminent post,
so that he proceeds before others to the extent that, while individuals merely
look after individual affairs, princes are concerned with the burdens of the
entire community… It is proper for all who dwell in the community of political
affairs to live according to it [the law] [3].
[1] Sidney Packard, Twelfth Century Europe (Amherst: Univeristy of Massachusetts Press, 1973), 170.
[2] Richard C. Dales,The Intellectual Life of Western Europe in the Middle Ages (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1995),153-154.
[3] John of Salisbury, Policraticus
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 28-30.