Note x — Chapter IX · [a] (continued 3)

Those who feel some curiosity about the civilians of the middle ages will find a concise and elegant account in Gravina, De Origine Juris Civilis, p. 166-206. (Lips. 1708.) Tiraboschi contains perhaps more information; but his prolixity is very wearisome. Besides this fault, it is evident that Tiraboschi knew very little of law, and had not read the civilians of whom he treats; whereas Gravina discusses their merits not only with legal knowledge, but with an acuteness of criticism which, to say the truth, Tiraboschi never shows except on a date or a name.

[The civil lawyers of the mediæval period are not at all forgotten on the continent, as the great work of Savigny, History of Roman Law in the Middle Ages, sufficiently proves. It is certain that the civil law must always be studied in Europe, nor ought the new codes to supersede it, seeing they are in great measure derived from its fountain; though I have heard that it is less regarded in France than formerly. In my earlier editions I depreciated the study of the civil law too much, and with too exclusive an attention to English notions.]