History of Private Law in Europe: With Particular Reference to Germany

In this book, Wieacker tells us the story of European Legal Thought. He begins in the high middle ages and describes how the Glossators started to apply methodical criticism and exegesis to the digest of Justinian, thus creating European jurisprudence. In telling the history of European legal thinking from its origins in Medieval Bologna down to the present day, Wieacker's is a quite stunning achievement. It thus eluciates the intellectual conditions for the development of law within Europe. Another great strength of the book lies in the elucidation of the constant interaction between legal thinking and the general philosophical ideas of the time: Scholasticism and Medieval Legal Science, Enlightenment and the Law of Reason, of Classicism (as well as Romanticism), and Savigny's Historical School. It is hardly surprising therefore that a work of such ambition and erudition should have becomes a classic though it is surprising that it has never before been translated into English. Now, thanks to Mr Weir's brilliant translation, the book will become accessible to English-speaking scholars the world over.