HISTORY OF LAW 261 



and institutions of the Anglo-Saxon invaders. As has already been 

 pointed out, the Teutonic tribes recognized the personality as dis- 

 tinct from the territoriality of the law, and preserved for themselves 

 the social system brought from the fastnesses of Germany. Until a 

 more fully developed feudal system converted the customary law of 

 the people into the civil law of a given territory, the relations between 

 the Anglo-Saxon invaders and the Britons whom they found in 

 possession of the land was very different from that of the Goths or 

 Lombards who settled among the more highly civilized people of 

 Southern Europe. There is no evidence that the Britons themselves 

 had made any substantial advancement in Roman civilization. The 

 Anglo-Saxons became the dominant people, not only in military 

 power but in social organization, and it is not reasonable to suppose 

 that they abandoned their own institutions and laws and adopted 

 those of a conquered race no higher in the scale of civilization than 

 they. What had the Romanized Britons to offer which the invading 

 Saxons should desire to adopt? So far as there is any evidence, the 

 Roman influence remained superficial, and was confined to a few 

 cities where traces of Roman occupancy, as distinct from mere 

 military conquest, are still to be found. To have adopted Roman 

 institutions would have involved necessarily the adoption to a 

 considerable extent of the Roman language, but no one can point 

 out any substantial traces of the Roman language in the speech 

 of the Anglo-Saxons at the earliest period of which monuments of the 

 Anglo-Saxon speech may be found. It is easy to make a catalogue 

 of similarities between the Anglo-Saxon law and the civil law as to 

 particular and disconnected subjects. But such analogies may be 

 traced between any two systems of law. Those who reason by means 

 of such analogies might trace our jury system, for instance, to the 

 Mosaic Code or the jurisprudence of Egypt with as much assurance 

 as they do to the civil law. Until some historical connection can be 

 established between the laws and institutions of the Anglo-Saxons 

 in England and those of the Romanized Britons, we shall be justi- 

 fied in accepting the belief that the laws of the Anglo-Saxons, such 

 as they may have been, were of Teutonic and not Roman origin. 



(2) During the Anglo-Saxon period, that is, from the time of 

 the invasion down to the time of the Norman Conquest, the only 

 possible Romanizing influence which could have been D __ * 

 brought to bear on the laws of England were those glo-Saxon 

 resulting from the introduction of Christianity by mis- Penod - 

 sionaries from Rome, and the study by learned men of continental 

 systems of law. Much has been said of the influence which bishops 

 and priests from Rome might have exerted on the law. But the extent 

 of such influence is a matter of pure surmise. So far as the monu- 

 ments of Anglo-Saxon law afford any evidence, there was no Roman- 



