Essay by David Combe
When I first thought about this project, many interesting thoughts began to roil: where should I begin? I reconsidered the hours I had spent in the bookshops of Paris and then reflected on today's law students gazing into their computer terminals, unaware of the law that lived in the pages of books and in volumen, papyrus, and vellum. This bibliographical Essay is necessarily a personal remembrance.
I recalled my first years as a law librarian and some of the questions I was asked. Where is the best short introduction to Roman law for the Louisiana lawyer? I would have to reply that an often overlooked source is to be found in chapter 44 of Gibbon. Also valuable was the Outline of the History of the Roman Law which appeared in the Louisiana Law Journal. I could also report that W.A. Hunter's short 212-page work was assigned to our class in Roman law, but doesn't Buckland's Textbook of Roman Law most closely fulfill the ideal of a one-volume treatise? And then there is Kent's Lecture XXIII, Of the Civil Law. My sentimental choice is Dupin's Precis Historique du Droit Romain, but there must be an almost endless supply of personal favorites of this type. Of course, I should not forget Kate Wallach's bibliographical essay which has been of use to me on many occasions.
The temptation to mention Scott's translation of the Corpus Juris Civilis must be overcome because of its many inadequacies, but I point it out because it is going to be found wherever one goes. It can be recommended for its enormity of scope; for anything else, it must be regarded faute de mieux.
Having said this, I cannot present the perfectly muscular bibliography of Roman law. This, I believe, has already been done by Dean Roscoe Pound in his Outlines of Lectures on Jurisprudence published in 1943. This minimalist Roman-law bibliography will be found on pages 211 to 213. Indeed, Pound's approach had to be abandoned; there are over one hundred interesting titles concerning Roman law in English, and many are still available from specialist dealers.
The great trove of Roman-law authorities cited in Louisiana jurisprudence appears in the first part of the last century. As a law student, I remember stumbling through Morgan v. Livingston and Gravier v. Livingston in a state of bewilderment. Here is one example of why:
In respect to the right of the riparious proprietor to the alluvial increase of his land, the law is both settled and admitted, and a reference to the following authorities perhaps unnecessary. Febrero de escrituras, 7, s 11, n 81. 3 Part. 28, 6—8, ff 41, 1, s 1. Inst. 2, 1, s 2. Rodriguez in ff. 41, 1, s 1 & 16, 5 Hein. El jur. 2, 1, s 358, 2 Voet in pand. 41, 1, s 15 Front. de re agr. 217, Wolff's Inst. jur. nat. & gent. 2, 2, s 245--251, 1 Domat, 3, 7, s 12, 1, 2 Denisart, 74, verbo alluvion, Puffend. 4, 7, s 12, Civ. Code, 102, art. 3, 106, art. 13, Blacks. Comm. 261, 3 Mass. T. R. 352.
The second footnote in Gravier v. Livingston was equally confounding:
5 D, 3, 20, s 14. J. D., 3, laws 9, 10, 11, 12 & 13. Roderig, exp. of same laws, p 114—117. Ayora. 64, No. 3. Faria, prac. 85, No. 16, 17, Ib. 86, No. 18, 24. Politica Villadiego, p. 830, No. 90. 2, Hulot, p. 70, s 1, 2, 3. Ib. p. 95, law 45. Hulot Cod. p, 449, l. 20. Ib. p. 506, l. 9. 2 d. Ib. Dig. p. 99. 1, 2, 3. 1st. Ib. Dig. p. 406, s 4. l. 13. Ib. p. 414, s 6. l. 20. 424, 17 l. 25. 409. 23. 3d Rod. 152, s 17. 1 Feb. 2 ch, 9, 10, 11, 12. Ayora. p. 1, ch. 5. Nos. 20 to 25.
In order to make sense of these citations, we will have to turn to the fine civil-law libraries of the time and to the bibliographies which show the works as a catalog raisonne. The sections that follow identify some of the more interesting titles.
About the Author
David Combe. Librarian and Professor of Law, Tulane Law School.
Citation
70 Tul. L. Rev. 2003 (1996)