2. THE DEVELOPMENT OF TEUTONIC LAW» By Edward Jenks^ THE epoch In which the states of Western Europe are now living, has a history and a unity of its own, and is pecul- iarly suitable as material for the study we are about to undertake. It is our own epoch, we know more about it than we know of any other, it appeals more powerfully to us than any other, we have inherited its traditions, we breathe its ideas. Dispute as we may about the details, we know that the Roman Empire fell as a political power, that the sceptre of Western Europe passed from the Roman to the Teuton. That the influence of Rome long overshadowed the new forces which took her place, may be readily admitted ; the Teuton did not begin to write history on a clean sheet. But the child who starts by copying his letters, in time proceeds to make letters of his own ; and if Clovis and his successors were fond of wearing the cast off clothes of the Caesars, they none the less set a new fashion of wearing them. Nowhere is this truth more abundantly clear than in the history of Teutonic law. Alongside of the elaborate system which generations of Roman
- This passage is extracted from "Law and Politics in the Middle
Ages," 1898, cc. I, II, pp. 6-55, and Appendix, pp. 321-326 (New York; Henry Holt & Co.). =* Principal and Director of Legal Studies of the Law wSociety of London. B. A., LL. B. King's College, Cambridge; M. A. Oxford and Cambridge; D. C. L. Oxford; Lecturer at Pembroke and Jesus Col- leges, Cambridge, 1888-1889; Dean of the Faculty of Law, Melbourne, 1889-1892; Professor of Law in University College, Liverpool. 1892- 1896; Reader in English Law, and Lecturer at Balliol College, Oxford, 1896-1903. Other Publications: Constitutional Experiments of the Common- wealth, 1891; The Doctrine of Consideration in English Law, 1893; The Government of Victoria, Australia, 1893; History of the Austra- lasian Colonies, 1896; Outline of English Local Government, 1895; Modern Land Law, 1899; A Short History of Politics, 1902; Edward I, 1902; Parliamentary England, 1903. 84
