Description
Book SynopsisThe roots of modern Western legal institutions and concepts go back nine centuries to the papal revolution, when the Western church established its political and legal unity and its independence from emperors, kings, and feudal lords. Out of this upheaval came the Western idea of integrated legal systems developed over generations and centuries.
Trade ReviewA magnificent volume, broad in scope and rich in detail; this may be the most important book on law in our generation. * American Political Science Review *
Superb… A
tour de force of insight and erudition. The principal text divides into two parts, the first dealing with the papal revolution and its distinctive legal system of canon law and the second describing the emergence of secular legalism through its roots in feudal, manorial, mercantile, urban, and royal systems… A magnificent topping-off to the conventional [law school] curriculum. * The Benchmark *
This is a book of the first importance. Every lawyer should read it… Clearly written and well-organized, it is a work of immense scholarship. * Los Angeles Daily Journal *
By demonstrating the revolutionary character of the papal reformation, Berman upsets periodizations commonly accepted by Church historians, positivists, Marxist historians, and historians of the law…
Law and Revolution is itself a revolutionary book in obliging the practitioners of many university disciplines to readjust their focus and to see in law a revolutionary cultural force. -- George H. Williams
Table of ContentsIntroduction Law and History Law and Revolution The Crisis of the Western Legal Tradition Toward a Social Theory of Law PART I: THE PAPAL REVOLUTION AND THE CANON LAW 1. The Background of the Western Legal Tradition: The Folklaw Tribal Law Dynamic Elements in Germanic Law: Christianity and Kingship Penitential Law and Its Relation to the Folklaw 2. The Origin of the Western Legal Tradition in the Papal Revolution Church and Empire: The Cluniac Reform The Dictates of the Pope The Revolutionary Character of the Papal Revolution Social-Psychological Causes and Consequences of the Papal Revolution The Rise of the Modern State The Rise of Modern Legal Systems 3.
