262 HISTORY OF LAW 



ization from this source. The system of courts was purely Anglo- 

 Saxon, and so was the procedure. The age was not one marked among 

 the English or among Teutonic peoples in the northern part of Europe 

 by any enthusiasm in the study of jurisprudence. From Alfred to 

 Edward the Confessor the laws, so far as we have any evidence as 

 to what they were, remained purely Teutonic. The Danish invasion 

 introduced no Roman elements, for as yet the Danes had not acquired 

 Roman institutions or laws. The laws of Cnut were as purely Teu- 

 tonic as those of Alfred. 



(3) The Norman invasion was the result of a claim of William 

 the Conqueror to the throne of England by inheritance, and his 

 Norman so-called conquest was simply the establishment by 

 Conquest, force of his right to rule as an English king. From the 

 first he recognized the Anglo-Saxon laws and institutions, and re- 

 peatedly bound himself to observe the laws of Edward the Confessor. 

 The Normans introduced in its full development the feudal system, 

 but that was distinctly Teutonic and antagonistic to the social 

 system of Rome. The laws of Normandy are to be discovered by 

 a study of the various compilations of its customary laws, and such 

 study discovers institutions and conceptions of law purely Teutonic 

 and almost exclusively feudal. No one has been able to discover in 

 the various coutumiers which were a favorite source from which to 

 ascertain the early law of England any traces of Romanization. 

 The Assize de Jerusalem which the Crusaders promulgated in the 

 East, and which maintained some precarious existence there for a 

 considerable period, was feudal and not Roman. With the Normans 

 came the distinct conception of territoriality, for the feudal system 

 was territorial rather than personal. The sovereignty of the lord 

 was complete and absolute within the limits of his domain, and 

 took no account of the principles of the different systems of law 

 applicable to people of different nationalities. 



(4) Law in England took systematic form during the century 

 and a half from the beginning of the reign of Henry II to the end 

 Beginning of the reign of Edward I. Were the form and conception 

 ^ic^a^y 1 " ^ ^is systematic law derived from the civil law? Around 

 in England, this question the controversy as to the nature of the 

 indebtedness of the common law to the Roman law properly turns. 

 If the Anglo-Saxon law took systematic form independently of any 

 controlling influences from the civil law, then it is as much entitled 

 to be considered a self-dependent system as the Roman law, which, 

 although it assimilated to itself foreign material, was in its spirit 

 and form a development of the Roman people. 



During the reign of Henry II the elements which had before 

 that time been lacking to entitle the common law of the Anglo- 

 Saxons to be regarded as a system of jurisprudence were added to 



