Jean Domat, or Daumat (30 November 162514 March 1696) was a French jurist.

Life

Domat was born at Clermont in

Auvergne Auvergne (; ; oc, label= Occitan, Auvèrnhe or ) is a former administrative region in central France, comprising the four departments of Allier, Puy-de-Dôme, Cantal and Haute-Loire. Since 1 January 2016, it has been part of the new region Au ...

. He studied the humaniora in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

, where he befriended Blaise Pascal, and later law at the

University of Bourges The University of Bourges (french: Université de Bourges) was a university located in Bourges, France. It was founded by Louis XI of France, Louis XI in 1463 and closed during the French Revolution. Until the mid-17th century, lack of suitable le ...

. Domat closely sympathized with the

Port-Royal Port Royal is the former capital city of Jamaica. Port Royal or Port Royale may also refer to: Institutions * Port-Royal-des-Champs, an abbey near Paris, France, which spawned influential schools and writers of the 17th century ** Port-Royal A ...

ists, and on Pascal's death he was entrusted with the latter's private papers. After Domat's promotion in 1645, he practised law in Clermont and was appointed a crown prosecutor there in 1655. In 1683, he retired from this office with a pension from

Louis XIV , house = Bourbon , father = Louis XIII , mother = Anne of Austria , birth_date = , birth_place = Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France , death_date = , death_place = Palace of Ver ...

to concentrate on his scholarship.

Principal work

Together with Antoine Dadin de Hauteserre,

Antoine Favre Antoine Favre, baron of Pérouges (5 October 1557 – 1624) was a Savoisian nobleman and jurist. Favre was born in Bourg-en-Bresse. After studies in Paris and Turin, he practiced law in Chambéry. He was a member of the Savoyard court there ...

and the Godefroy brothers, Domat was one of the few later French scholars of

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 Ju ...

of international significance. He is principally known from his elaborate legal digest, in three quarto volumes, under the title of ''Lois civiles dans leur ordre naturel'' (1689, with 68 later editions), an undertaking for which Louis XIV settled on him a pension of 2,000 livres. A fourth volume, ''Le droit public'', was published in 1697, a year after his death. After Hugo Doneau's more thorough but less consistent ''Commentarii iuris civilis'' (1589), the work was the first of this type of pan-European significance. It was to become one of the principal sources of the ''ancien droit'' on which the Napoleonic Code was later founded. Domat's work was in line with earlier

Humanist Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential and agency of human beings. It considers human beings the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry. The meaning of the term "human ...

attempts to transform the seemingly random historical sources of law into a rational system of rules. However, as a supporter of a Cartesian juridical order, Domat endeavoured to found all law upon

ethical Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns ma ...

or religious principles, his motto being "''L'homme est fait par Dieu et pour Dieu''" ("Man was made by God and for God"). The work was thus an attempt to establish a system of French law on the basis of moral principles, and it presented the contents of the

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 Emperor. It is also sometimes referred ...

in the form of a new system of

natural law Natural law ( la, ius naturale, ''lex naturalis'') is a system of law based on a close observation of human nature, and based on values intrinsic to human nature that can be deduced and applied independently of positive law (the express enacte ...

. After the work of

Robert Joseph Pothier Robert Joseph Pothier (9 January 1699 – 2 March 1772) was a French jurist. Life He was born and passed away at Orléans. He studied law to qualify for the magistracy, and was appointed Judge in 1720 of the Presidial Court of Orléans, followin ...

, Domat's work is regarded as the second most important influence on the

Civil Code of Lower Canada The ''Civil Code of Lower Canada'' (french: Code civil du Bas-Canada) was a set of laws that were in effect in Lower Canada on 1 August 1866 and remained in effect in Quebec until repealed and replaced by the Civil Code of Quebec on 1 January 19 ...

Editions

*''Lois civiles dans leur ordre naturel'', 1689 ** ** **

Later life

Besides the ''Lois civiles'', Domat prepared, in Latin, a selection of the laws in the Digesta and the

Codex Justinianeus The Code of Justinian ( la, Codex Justinianus, or ) is one part of the ''Corpus Juris Civilis'', the codification of Roman law ordered early in the 6th century AD by Justinian I, who was Eastern Roman emperor in Constantinople. Two other units, t ...

under the title ''Legum delectus'' (Paris, 1700; Amsterdam, 1703); it was subsequently appended to the ''Lois civiles''. Domat died in Paris on 14 March 1696.

Life

Principal work

Editions

Later life

References

Further reading