‘Something older than law itself’: Sir Henry Maine, Niebuhr, and ‘the path not chosen’
2005; Routledge; Volume: 26; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/01440360500347483
ISSN1744-0564
Autores Tópico(s)Legal and Social Philosophy
ResumoThis article re-evaluates the intellectual context of Maine's historical jurisprudence by emphasising the importance of his classical background. Maine's time at Cambridge coincided with the rise of ‘progressive classical scholarship’, especially the study of ancient history in its social, economic and institutional setting. By exploring the links between Maine's work and that of the ancient historian Barthold Georg Niebuhr, the article argues that an understanding of Maine's classical provenance enriches the appreciation of his work, especially its literary, interdisciplinary and educational challenge to the common law mind. Maine emerges on this account as a Victorian ‘neo-humanist’ whose later neglect is symptomatic of the more general separation of nineteenth-century English jurisprudence from mainstream European thought.
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