Did the Catholic Intellectual Tradition Influence the Common Law?

How a lot did the Catholic mental custom affect the frequent regulation? If that query pursuits you, this is a brand new draft essay, The Affect of the Catholic Mental Custom on the Frequent Legislation, that I’m contributing to a festschrift to honor John Witte, one of many world’s main students on regulation and faith. The summary:

This essay considers the affect of the Catholic mental custom on the frequent regulation. As a preliminary matter, the essay notes that the time period “Catholic mental custom” is of current classic, although its referent is way older. It identifies three mechanisms of affect: inheriting, conversing, and producing. For inheriting, the essay notes that some frequent regulation doctrines, such because the Chancellor’s conscience, had been inherited from the Catholic mental custom. For conversing, the essay notes the dialog throughout confessional boundaries in early fashionable Europe, which was facilitated by means of Latin and scholastic curricula nicely after the Reformation. This level, whereas acquainted to early fashionable mental historians due to revisionist work over the past quarter century, could also be stunning to authorized students. Lastly, for producing, this essay reveals that the frequent regulation judges, by their very own lights, had been contributors within the Catholic mental custom. That is demonstrated, for instance, by evaluation of Chief Justice Vaughan’s opinion in Thomas v. Sorrell (1673/4). When this mental custom is considered with out anachronistic narrowness, its affect on the frequent regulation is substantial.

If you would like to see John Witte’s current Gifford Lecture on “A New Calvinist Reformation of Rights,” you possibly can watch it right here.