The Medieval Origins of the Legal Profession by James A. Brundage;

Author:James A. Brundage;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 2008-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Conclusion

The Tradition of the Legal Profession

Advocates and proctors who practiced regularly in the courts of the medieval ius commune, the European general law, became full-fledged professionals during the second quarter of the thirteenth century. The gradual process that led to the emergence of professional lawyers began a little more than a century earlier when schools of Roman law began to reappear in western Europe, first at Bologna and shortly thereafter in the south of France. Alumni of these schools at first used the skills they acquired primarily to teach Roman law, although they occasionally provided legal advice to individuals who sought it. The principal occupation of the Four Doctors of Bologna, so far as we can tell, was teaching, but they also served on occasion as iurisperiti who advised individuals about the legal ramifications of transactions, remedies for grievances, or defenses against opponents.

Trained jurists began to appear regularly as pleaders in the courts around or shortly after the middle of the twelfth century. By around 1150, when the vulgate version of Gratian’s Decretum had taken its final form, at least a few men trained in Roman and canon law were able to make a living by using their legal knowledge and forensic skills to argue on behalf of litigants in the courts. Employment opportunities for these lawyers were at first most plentiful in church courts. By the last quarter of the twelfth century, popes and bishops had begun to delegate their routine judicial duties to officials who had some formal training in Roman and canon law. The courts of municipalities, kings, and other secular rulers, which generally operated under local statutes or customary law, initially furnished fewer job prospects for lawyers trained in the learned laws. Those opportunities soon began to multiply, however, as these courts, too, began to adopt romano-canonical procedure.

The institutionalization of law teaching that occurred with the organization of universities around the turn of the thirteenth century marked a further step toward the professionalization of learned lawyers. University law faculties served two vital functions in the development of professional status. They furnished students with systematic instruction in Roman and canon law, as individual masters had previously done in their private schools. Beyond that, universities established formal curricula for law students and created a system of examinations to test their competence. University law faculties collectively certified that students to whom they awarded degrees had not only spent a substantial period of time studying the two laws that comprised the ius commune, but had also demonstrated skill in using that knowledge in public disputations and had proved in a demanding examination that they could argue points of law successfully.

Just as Europe’s first universities commenced to take shape, the romano-canonical procedural system was starting to reach maturity. Because romano-canonical procedure required parties to submit formal written documents at every stage of proceedings, even litigants who appeared on their own behalf required knowledgeable advice and guidance from someone familiar with the system’s forms and the practical details about submitting them to the appropriate authorities.

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