My name is Amy Goymour and I'm one of the lecturers in the Cambridge Law Faculty, and
I'm going to say a few words that one of the subjects I teach - Civil Law I - which is
also known as Roman Law.
And that is the law that the ancient Romans used.
Now in Cambridge Roman Law is a first-year subject and it's actually a compulsory subject.
You won't find it taught in many other law schools, so why in Cambridge do we regard
it as an essential first-year paper?
Now for at least two reasons, somebody might query whether Roman Law is a useful subject
to study. First of all law tends to reflect the society it has to govern.
Roman Law obviously governed an ancient system - not England, and not in modern times - so
an ancient system from another country. So we might query where the Roman Law is relevant
at all.
Secondly Roman Law was - compared to English Law - a much more simplistic system. Its contents
can be found in about four books, whereas English Law spans several hundreds and thousands
of pages in a library if you were to discover it in full.
So we need to ask ourselves why we study Roman Law especially as a compulsory first-year
subject. My aim in this short video is to look at those two concerns and to actually
show you that neither of those two concerns actually holds, and that actually Roman Law
is a relevant and fascinating subject and also a really important one to study if you
want to be a really good law student.
So let's first address the first concern, that Roman Law arguably concerns an ancient
society and therefore can't be of any relevance to the modern day. While that is true in part
- for example the Romans had slaves and therefore they had law to govern the holding of slaves
- thankfully that's not relevant today. But actually many of the factual scenarios that
Roman Law had to govern equally arise today.
For example people used to sell things. They used to have disputes over who owned things.
They used to have disputes when one person injured another. We have exactly the same
factual scenarios today which English law also has to provide answers to.
So the idea that Roman Law isn't relevant and the answers the Romans provided to these
problems isn't relevant just isn't true, because we have to provide solutions to exactly the
same sorts of problems.
Now in Cambridge our Roman Law course is divided into three parts: The law of property, the
law of contract, and the law of wrongdoing (what they called the law of delict), and
we look at all of these three parts.
Now I'm just going to give you an example from the law of property, just to illustrate
that the Romans had to find solutions to exactly the same sorts of problems that we have today.
Now the example is very straightforward - imagine that A owns the chariot. It is stolen by a
thief party B. B then sells the chariot to a purchaser who is innocent and doesn't realize
the chariots been stolen. The purchaser has enjoyed using the chariot. B the thief is
paid the money and runs away never to be seen again. A manages to track down that chariot
and wants it back, but C argues that it should be his because he paid good money for it and
didn't know it was stolen. So this is the problem should A get the chariot back or should
C get to keep it. And this is a problem that the Romans had to solve. Both of these parties
are innocent parties. Should we prefer the first owner or should we prefer the later
purchaser? It was a dilemma and the Romans decided to resolve that dilemma by allowing
party A to get their chariot back.
Now in English Law you can imagine that we have to solve exactly the same question. The
chariot could of course be a bicycle or a computer or a car, and we have to decide which
of these two innocent parties A or C gets to keep the item of property when it's stolen
and sold on. Now English Law tends to adopt much the same solution as the Romans did which
is an interesting insight. A generally will get to get the item back, except in a few
exceptional circumstances.
So hopefully that shows that Roman Law offers a really interesting insight into another
legal systems response to everyday problems.
Now let's go back to the second concern that somebody looking at Roman Law might have as
to its relevance today - the idea that Roman Law was a simplistic system compared to the
many hundreds of pages that make up English law today. Now I'm going to offer you three
reasons why actually it's definitely worth looking at Roman Law even though it was a
more simplistic system than our legal system today.
First of all it's actually a real bonus that Roman Law can be found in just four books.
This means that you can get to grips with a whole legal system in just one year, and
you can get a really nice overview of the subject and how different parts of the subject
actually fit together. You will never ever even if you study and practice law for the
rest of your lives get to grips with the whole of English Law - there's just too much of
it. But you will do that with Roman Law, and you will get to see how the law of contract
fits with the law of property, and fits with the law of delict. Making those connections
will make you a really good lawyer.
Secondly, the Roman Law, even though it was ancient, was actually exceptionally good.
The Romans were very very good at building roads and they were equally good at creating
law, and developing an advanced legal system. So Roman Law yes it's ancient but it's definitely
worth studying.
Thirdly many European systems are directly built on Roman Law. For example German Law
and French Law have directly built on Roman Law when they created their civil legal code.
So if you ever wanted to go on and study those legal systems having a base in Roman Law would
actually be very very useful.
Now English law isn't directly built on Roman Law it's a different type of legal system
but there are parts of English Law that do directly draw on Roman Law. Some of the most
recent Supreme Court decisions have actually quoted parts of ancient Roman Law when reaching
decision.
So hopefully this has given you something of an insight into Roman Law and all that
it has to offer.