6. M AIT LAND: THE RENAISSANCE 171 The medieval commentators, the Balduses and Bartoluses, the people whom Hutten and Rabelais ' could deride, were in like case with Peter Lombard, Duns Scotus and other men of the night. Back to the texts ! was the cry, and let the light of literature and history play upon them.^ The great Frenchmen who were to do the main part of the work and to make the school of Bourges illustrious were still young or unborn; Cujas was born in 1522; but already the advanced guard was on the march and the flourish of trumpets might be heard.^ And then in 1520 — well, we know what hap- professor of law, died in 1535. See Stintzing, Ulrich Zasius, Basel, 1857, where (pp. 162-316) the intercourse between Erasmus, Zasi, Al- ciato and Bude is described. • The early Italian humanists had looked on Jurisprudence with disdain and disgust. See Geiger, Renaissance und Humanismus, 1882, pp. 500-503; Voigt, Die Wiederhelehung des Classischen Alterthums, ed. 3, vol. ii., pp. 477-484. Gradually, so I under- stand, philologians such as Bud6 (d. 1540) began to discover that there was matter interesting to them in the Corpus Juris, and a few jurists turned towards the new classical learning. See Tilley, Humanism under Francis I., in English Historical Review, vol. xv., pp. 456 flF. In 1520 Zasi, writing to Alciato, said " All sciences have put off their dirty clothes; only jurisprudence remains in her rags." (Stintzing, Ulrich Zasius, p. 107.) ^ Rabelais, Pantagruel, liv. ii., ch. x. : " Sottes et desraisonnables raisons et inepts opinions de Accurse, Balde, Bartole, de Castro, de Imola, Hippolytus, Panorme, Bertachin, Alexander, Curtius et ces autres vieux mastins, qui jamais n'entendirent la moindre loy des Pandectes, et n'es- toient que gros veaulx de disme, ignorans de tout ce qu'est necessaire k I'intelligence des loix. Car (comme il est tout certain) ilz n'avoient cog- noissance de langue ny grecque, ny latine, mais seulement de gothique et barbare. . . . Davantage, veu que les loix sont extirp6es du milieu de philosophic morale et naturelle, comment I'entendront ces folz, qui ont par Dieu moins estudi6 en philosophic que ma mulle. Au regard des lettres d'humanit^ et cognoissance des antiquites et histoires ilz en estoient charges comme un crapaud de plumes, et en usent comme un crucifix d'un pifre, dont toutesfois les droits sont tous pleins, et sans ce ne peu- vent estre entenduz." W. F. Smith, Rabelais, vol. i., p. 257, translates the last sentence thus : " With regard to the cultivated literature and knowl- edge of antiquities and history, they were as much provided with those faculties as is a toad with feathers and have as much use for them as a drunken heretic has for a crucifix. . . ." 'Stintzing, Geschichte der deutschen Rechtswissenschaft, vol. i., p. 96: "Man wird sich bewusst, dass nicht in der Uberlieferten Schulweisheit das Wesen der Wissenschaft stecke; dass es auch hier gelte, dem Rufe des Humanismus ' zuriick zu den Quellen ! ' zu folgen." •The greatest names appear to be those of Francois Duaren or more correctly Le Douarin (1509-1559), Jacques Cujas (1522-1590), Hugues Doneau (Donellus, 1527-1592), Francois Baudouin (Balduinus, 1520- 1573), Francois Hotman (1524-1591), Denis Godefroy (1549-1622), Jacques Godefroy (1587-1652). Besides these there is Charles Du Moulin (Molinaeus, 1500-1566) whose chief work, however, was done upon French customary law, and who in the study of Roman law repre- sents a conservative tradition. (Esmein, Histoire du droit franqais, ed.
