The Pandectists were German university legal scholars in the early 19th century who studied and taught
Roman law
Roman law is the legal system of ancient Rome, including the legal developments spanning over a thousand years of jurisprudence, from the Twelve Tables (c. 449 BC), to the '' Corpus Juris Civilis'' (AD 529) ordered by Eastern Roman emperor J ...
as a model of what they called ''Konstruktionsjurisprudenz'' (conceptual jurisprudence) as codified in the
Pandects
The ''Digest'', also known as the Pandects ( la, Digesta seu Pandectae, adapted from grc, πανδέκτης , "all-containing"), is a name given to a compendium or digest of juristic writings on Roman law compiled by order of the Byzantine ...
of
Justinian
Justinian I (; la, Iustinianus, ; grc-gre, Ἰουστινιανός ; 48214 November 565), also known as Justinian the Great, was the Byzantine emperor from 527 to 565.
His reign is marked by the ambitious but only partly realized '' renova ...
(Berman).
Beginning in the mid-19th century, the Pandectists were attacked in arguments by noted jurists
Julius Hermann von Kirchmann and
Rudolf von Jhering, who favored a modern approach of law as a practical means to an end (Weber).
In the United States,
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. and other legal realists pushed for laws based on what judges and the courts actually did, rather than the historical and conceptual or academic law of
Friedrich Carl von Savigny
Friedrich Carl von Savigny (21 February 1779 – 25 October 1861) was a German jurist and historian.
Early life and education
Savigny was born at Frankfurt am Main, of a family recorded in the history of Lorraine, deriving its name from the cast ...
and the Pandectists (Rosenberg).
See also
*
Corpus Juris Civilis
The ''Corpus Juris'' (or ''Iuris'') ''Civilis'' ("Body of Civil Law") is the modern name for a collection of fundamental works in jurisprudence, issued from 529 to 534 by order of Justinian I, Byzantine Emperors, Byzantine Emperor. It is also ...
*
Law of Germany
The law of Germany (german: das Recht Deutschlands), that being the modern German legal system (german: Deutsches Rechtssystem), is a system of civil law which is founded on the principles laid out by the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of G ...
*
Civil code
A civil code is a codification of private law relating to property, family, and obligations.
A jurisdiction that has a civil code generally also has a code of civil procedure. In some jurisdictions with a civil code, a number of the core ar ...
*
Roman law
Roman law is the legal system of ancient Rome, including the legal developments spanning over a thousand years of jurisprudence, from the Twelve Tables (c. 449 BC), to the '' Corpus Juris Civilis'' (AD 529) ordered by Eastern Roman emperor J ...
References
* ''Law and Revolution: The Formation of the Western Legal Tradition'' Harold J. Berman, Harvard, 1983
* ''On Charisma and Institution Building'' Max Weber, U. Chicago, 1968
* ''The Hidden Holmes: His Theory of Torts in History'' David Rosenberg, Harvard, 1996
External links
*
Civil Law Codification in the German-Speaking States of Northern and Central Europe
p
Roman law
Legal history of Germany
Philosophy of law
{{Germany-law-stub