Joe Sampson – författare

This edited collection presents an interesting and original series of essays on the roles of principle and pragmatism in Roman private law. The book traverses key areas of Roman law to examine the explanatory power of - and delineate interactions between - abstract, doctrinal principle, and pragmatic, real-world problem-solving. Essays canvassing sources of law, property, succession, contracts and delicts sketch the varied roles of theoretical narratives - whether internal to Roman doctrine or derived from external influence - and of practical, policy-based solutions in the jurists’ thought. Principled reasoning in Roman juristic argument ranges from safeguarding commerce, to the priority of acts or intentions in property transactions, to notions of pietas, to Platonic conceptions of the market. Pragmatism is discernible in myriad ways, from divergence between form and substance, to extension of legal rules for economic, social or political utility, to emphasis on what parties did rather than what they said. The distinctive contribution of the book is its survey of different manifestations of principle and pragmatism across Roman private law. The essays - by eminent as well as emerging academics - will stimulate debate about the roles principle and pragmatism play in juristic argument, and will be of interest to both scholars and students of Roman law.

This edited collection presents an interesting and original series of essays on the roles of principle and pragmatism in Roman private law. The book traverses key areas of Roman law to examine the explanatory power of - and delineate interactions between - abstract, doctrinal principle, and pragmatic, real-world problem-solving. Essays canvassing sources of law, property, succession, contracts and delicts sketch the varied roles of theoretical narratives - whether internal to Roman doctrine or derived from external influence - and of practical, policy-based solutions in the jurists’ thought. Principled reasoning in Roman juristic argument ranges from safeguarding commerce, to the priority of acts or intentions in property transactions, to notions of pietas, to Platonic conceptions of the market. Pragmatism is discernible in myriad ways, from divergence between form and substance, to extension of legal rules for economic, social or political utility, to emphasis on what parties did rather than what they said. The distinctive contribution of the book is its survey of different manifestations of principle and pragmatism across Roman private law. The essays - by eminent as well as emerging academics - will stimulate debate about the roles principle and pragmatism play in juristic argument, and will be of interest to both scholars and students of Roman law.

Over the last 40 years, David Ibbetson has paved the way in a remarkably broad range of fields.In ancient law, his scholarship has spanned both the detailed doctrine of the Roman law of obligations and the cross-pollination of legal influences around the ancient Mediterranean. His work on English legal history has ranged from the earliest days of the common law through to the turn of the 20th century, combining forensic archival research with a sensitivity to how lawyers thought about their subject. In European legal history, he has shown the porousness of the civil law and the extent to which it has been shaped by other areas of intellectual life, from theology to rationalist philosophy.The contributions to this volume in his honour mirror both the breadth and the depth of Ibbetson’s scholarship. The book combines chapters from leading legal historians, close colleagues and over a dozen of Ibbetson’s students. Some chapters build upon or respond to Ibbetson’s ideas, others his areas of interest. The contributions are introduced by Ibbetson’s valedictory lecture on the importance of legal history to modern practice and scholarship, and the work yet to be done.