This edited collection presents an interesting and original series of essays on the roles of principle and pragmatism in Roman private law.
The book traverses key areas of Roman law to examine the explanatory power of - and delineate interactions between - abstract, doctrinal principle, and pragmatic, real-world problem-solving. Essays canvassing sources of law, property, succession, contracts and delicts sketch the varied roles of theoretical narratives - whether internal to Roman doctrine or derived from external influence - and of practical, policy-based solutions in the jurists’ thought.
Principled reasoning in Roman juristic argument ranges from safeguarding commerce, to the priority of acts or intentions in property transactions, to notions of pietas, to Platonic conceptions of the market. Pragmatism is discernible in myriad ways, from divergence between form and substance, to extension of legal rules for economic, social or political utility, to emphasis on what parties did rather than what they said.
The distinctive contribution of the book is its survey of different manifestations of principle and pragmatism across Roman private law. The essays - by eminent as well as emerging academics - will stimulate debate about the roles principle and pragmatism play in juristic argument, and will be of interest to both scholars and students of Roman law.
Principle and Pragmatism Benjamin Spagnolo and Joe Sampson 2. Modes of Roman Legal Reasoning in Context: A Brief Survey Paul J du Plessis 3. The Case of the Careless Purchaser, or ‘Bonitary Ownership’ and Ownership Mike Macnair 4. Explaining D. 41.1.36 Joe Sampson 5. The Place of Rhetoric in Late Republican Law: Some Thoughts on Pietas and the Querela Inofficiosi Testamenti Graeme Cunningham 6. Writing, Speaking and the Roman Stipulatio David Ibbetson 7. Principle and Practice in the Pacta Adiecta Boudewijn Sirks 8. Plato, Principle and Pragmatism: Market Regulation in D. 50.11.2 Constantin Willems 9. Limits of Juristic Argument in the Exercitorian Edict Peter Candy 10. Insulam Exurere: Reading Collatio 12.7.1–3 Closely Wolfgang Ernst 11. Quasi and (Cor)ruptio Benjamin Spagnolo
Benjamin Spagnolo is Fellow and Lecturer in Law at Trinity College, Cambridge. Joe Sampson is Associate Professor of Law at the University of Oxford and Tutorial Fellow in Law at Magdalen College, Oxford.
