论现代英国法律史学的兴起

On the Rise of the Science of Legal History in Modern England

17世纪初,英国出现了法律史研究领域的著作,爱德华·柯克、约翰·塞尔登和马修·黑尔是英国法律史研究的先行者,他们阐明了普通法的历史渊源,维护了普通法的独立地位。梅因在继承柯克等人的法律历史主义观念的基础上,将实证主义方法引入了法律史研究,强调要在实际的历史进程中考察法律的发展状况。为此,梅因系统地批判了自然法学派和分析法学派的研究方法。梅特兰运用大量的诉讼卷宗与议会档案等原始文献,更加严谨而精细地研究了英国法律发展的进程,使得英国法律史研究具有了现代史学的特征,推动了英国法律史学成为法学中的独立学科。

The beginning of the 17th century witnessed the appearance of the legal history works. Edward Coke, John Selden and Matthew Hale were the foregoers in this field. They expounded the historical origin of the common law, and safeguarded its independent status. By succeeding the doctrine of the men mentioned a- bove, Maine introduced the positivism method into the study of the legal history. Maine also emphasized that it needed to analyze the development of law in the course of history. Furthermore, Maine systematically criti- cized both the methods of the School of Natural Law and the School of Analytical Law. Maitland researched a huge number of plea - roils and parliament rolls and analyzed carefully the development process of the Eng- lish law. His efforts gave the English legal history study some characteristics of the modern historiography, and made sure the science of legal history an independent status in the field of law study.