The Beacon Lights of the Law ing."4 It is hoped "that the failure of the Rolls edition will not deter Eng lish scholars from the arduous task of preparing another one more worthy of the great thirteenth-century lawyer," as "there is yet no edition of his work which can be considered as even moder ately reliable." Reeves tells us that the treatise is a finished and systematic performance, giving a complete view of the law, in all its titles, as it stood at the time it was written. This statement is incorrect. Bracton undoubtedly intended to write a complete treatise on the laws of Eng land, but he leaves off in the middle of the discussion of the writ of right. It consists of 450 or more folios. After a brief introduction, it treats of the law of persons, the law of things, of actions, jurisdiction, pleas of the crown and of various writs. In it we see two great typical traits of English law, its depend ence on writs and on decided cases. Wherever possible Bracton cites or com ments on cases taken from the Rolls, there being then no reports, and in this respect was in advance of the writers of his time. BRACTON AND THE ROMAN LAW The treatise is written in a style both clean and expressive, though not always polished. This must be attributed to his acquaintance with the writings of the Roman lawyers, from whom "he adopted greater helps than the language in which they wrote."5 Later writers have sought to discredit Bracton as an authority on English law. Maine, in his work on "Ancient Law," says that it is "one of the most hopeless enigmas in the history of jurisprudence that an English writer of the time of Henry III should have been able to put off on his country man, as a compendium of pure English 'Law Qr. Rev. I, 189. 'Reeves' History of Roman Law, II, 88.
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law, a treatise of which the entire form and a third of the contents were directly borrowed from the Corpus Juris."6 Reeves, on the other hand, claims that the passages excepted to, if put together, would perhaps not fill three whole pages, and seem to be alluded to for illustration and not as an authority. The opinion of a student of the Roman law would seem to be worthy of respect. Scrutton has gone into this care fully and thoroughly, and he sums up the matter clearly. He divides Bracton's work into three parts:— I. The part in which Azo, the Insti tutes, or the Digest, is copied with almost verbal accuracy, and covers some twenty-five folios. The matter taken is in several places modified to represent the law of England and frequent omis sions of unsuitable parts show an intelli gent copying. II. The part where Roman prin ciples are the framework, with large masses of English matter moulded on them. Embedded in the English matter are some unacknowledged citations from the Roman law, but they are not very frequent or of great importance. Some times their only effect is to give form to English matter. III. The remainder of the work shows very slight, if any, traces of Roman influences. About two-thirds of the work is of this character, English in its matter with some slight traces of scholastic form.7 Roman law was as much the special creation of the lawyer as our common law is the creation of the judge, in other words the former was a system of rea soning, while the latter is one of pre cedent. Bracton was well acquainted with the Roman law, then well settled, and was dealing with a system till then 'Ancient Law, p. 82. Law Qr. Rtv. I. 429, 430.
