The Regius Chair of Civil Law, founded in the 1540s, is one of the oldest professorships at the University of Oxford.
The Regius Chair of Civil Law, founded in the 1540s, is one of the oldest professorships at the University of Oxford.
The Regius Chair of Civil Law at Oxford was founded by King Henry VIII, who established five such Regius Professorships in the University, the others being the chairs of Divinity, Physic (Old English for Medicine), Hebrew and Greek. [1] The stipend attached to the position was then forty pounds a year. [2] Henry VIII put an end to the teaching of Canon law at both Oxford and Cambridge. [3] Under statutes of 1549, the Regius Professor of Civil Law was to lecture four times a week between the hours of eight and nine in the morning on the Pandects, on the Code, or on the ecclesiastical laws of England. The requirement to give four lectures a week was repeated in the statutes of 1564 and of 1576. The professor was also to moderate at disputations in law. [2]
The exact date of the chair's foundation is uncertain. Some sources say that John Story, the first professor, was appointed in about 1541. [2] No foundation document survives, [2] but in 1544 Robert Weston was recorded as acting as Story's deputy. [4]
The holder of the Regius Professorship is still chosen by The Crown and is still appointed to teach Roman law, its principles and history, and some other branches of the law. [1]
It is uncertain when the first Regius Professor, the Blessed John Story, was first appointed. The History of the University of Oxford says that it was by a signed bill, c. 1541, adding that, together with Robert Weston, Story was reappointed for life by letters patent dated 26 February 1546. [5] Payments to Story as professor of Civil Law are found in the accounts of the Treasurer of the Court of Augmentations for the periods Michaelmas 1546 to Michaelmas 1550, part of 1553, and 1556–1557, and for fees and annuities in issues of the Exchequer for 1553–1557. [6]
Story had a tempestuous career. Elected to parliament in 1547, in 1548 he opposed the anti-Roman Catholic laws of King Edward VI, was imprisoned, and on release fled to the Seventeen Provinces. The reign of the Roman Catholic Queen Mary from July 1553 to November 1558 brought Story back into public life. He became a member of parliament again, and after Mary's death opposed the Act of Supremacy of 1559. He was again imprisoned, escaped, was recaptured, and fled again to the Low Countries, where he became a subject of Philip II of Spain. He was kidnapped by agents of Queen Elizabeth I, imprisoned in the Tower of London, where he was tortured, and finally in 1571 was hanged, drawn and quartered. [7]
Story was beatified by Pope Leo XIII in 1886. [7]
Although prestigious, the Regius Chair has not always been effective for teaching purposes. In 1846, a select committee of the House of Commons began to inquire into the state of legal education in the United Kingdom, and its report later the same year showed the emptiness of the title of Regius Professor of Civil Law at Oxford at that time. Dr Joseph Phillimore, who had held the chair since 1809 and who continued to hold it until his death in 1855 at the age of eighty, admitted in a series of evasive replies to the select committee that his subject had not been taught at Oxford for almost a hundred years. Dr Philip Bliss, Registrar of the University, revealed that the university had no examinations in any "legal science". Although the degree of Bachelor of Civil Law was still awarded, the "disputations" which led to such an award were an empty formality. [8]
One of Phillimore's 18th century predecessors, Robert Vansittart, a noted antiquarian and rake, was appointed Regius Professor in 1767 and held the chair until his death in 1789. He published antiquarian works, was a close acquaintance of Samuel Johnson, William Hogarth and Paul Whitehead, and was a participant in the debauchery of the Hellfire Club. [9] Vansittart's successor, Thomas Francis Wenman (1745–1796), Regius Professor from 1789 until his death, is described in the Dictionary of National Biography as "one of the few students of natural history at Oxford" and was drowned in the River Cherwell on 8 April 1796, while collecting botanical specimens. [10]
After the death of Phillimore in 1855, the situation improved somewhat. Although the next professor, Sir Travers Twiss, held degrees in Mathematics and Literae Humaniores, he came to the post directly from three years as professor of international law at King's College, London, where the teaching of law was taken more seriously than at Oxford. His international reputation led to Leopold II, king of the Belgians asking him to draft the constitution of the Congo Free State. [11]
Twiss was succeeded in 1870 by James Bryce, 1st Viscount Bryce, a distinguished historian and Liberal politician who for a period combined the Regius chair of civil law with holding office as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and who resigned the chair only in 1893, a year after joining William Ewart Gladstone's Cabinet. [12]
In 1955, the distinguished German academic lawyer David Daube (1909–1999), a native of Freiburg im Breisgau, became the first foreign-born Regius Professor of Civil Law at Oxford since the 17th century. He was later a professor-in-residence at the University of California, Berkeley. [13]
Daube was succeeded in 1971 by Tony Honoré (born 1921), a jurist known for his work on ownership, causation and Roman law, who remained in post until 1988. Although born in London, he was brought up in South Africa, fought in the Second World War and was severely wounded at the First Battle of El Alamein. His contributions to legal philosophy include sixteen books and more than a hundred articles.
In 1988, Peter Birks was appointed, holding office until his death in 2004. He was a specialist on the law of Restitution. [14]
After a vacancy of more than a year, Boudewijn Sirks was appointed in December 2005 and took up the post in 2006, his previous career having been in teaching philosophy and law at the universities of Leiden, Amsterdam, Utrecht, and Frankfurt. [1]
In 2015, Sirks was succeeded by Wolfgang Ernst, [15] whose research focuses on Roman law. [16]
Robert Vansittart was an English jurist, antiquarian and rake.
Sir Travers Twiss QC FRS was an English jurist. He had a distinguished academic and legal career culminating in his appointment as Queen's Advocate-General. Twiss was particularly noted for his contribution to the theory of international law. He was widely consulted, and was asked to draw up the constitution of the Congo Free State. A prolific author, Twiss wrote many influential textbooks on legal matters.
The Regius Professorship of Greek is a professorship at the University of Oxford in England.
The Regius Chair of Law at the University of Glasgow was founded in December 1713 with an endowment by Queen Anne. It is one of twelve Regius Professorships within the University of Glasgow. The first holder of the chair, William Forbes, was appointed in 1714. The current holder, James Chalmers, was appointed in 2012.
David Daube was the twentieth century's preeminent scholar of ancient law. He combined a familiarity with many legal systems, particularly Roman law and biblical law, with an expertise in Greek, Roman, Jewish, and Christian literature, and used literary, religious, and legal texts to illuminate each other and, among other things, to "transform the position of Roman law" and to launch a "revolution" or "near revolution" in New Testament studies.
William Aubrey was Regius Professor of Civil Law at the University of Oxford from 1553 to 1559, and was one of the founding Fellows of Jesus College, Oxford. He was also a Member of Parliament for various Welsh and English constituencies between 1554 and 1592.
Adriaan Johan Boudewijn Sirks, known as Boudewijn Sirks and as A. J. B. Sirks, is a Dutch academic lawyer and legal historian specializing in Roman law. He was Regius Professor of Civil Law at the University of Oxford from 2006 to 2014.
The Honourable Thomas Francis Wenman FRS was a British professor, natural historian, and antiquarian.
The Regius Professorship of Mathematics is the name given to three chairs in mathematics at British universities, one at the University of St Andrews, founded by Charles II in 1668, the second one at the University of Warwick, founded in 2013 to commemorate the Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II and the third one at the University of Oxford, founded in 2016.
The position of Dean Ireland's Professor of the Exegesis of Holy Scripture was established at the University of Oxford in 1847. This professorship in the critical interpretation or explanation of biblical texts, a field known as exegesis, was instituted by John Ireland, who was Dean of Westminster from 1816 until his death in 1842. He founded scholarships in his lifetime at the University of Oxford, which are still awarded after an examination to undergraduates "for the promotion of classical learning and taste". In his will, he left £10,000 to the university, with the interest arising to be applied to the professorship. The first professor, Edward Hawkins, was appointed in 1847. The second Dean Ireland's Professor, Robert Scott, had won an Ireland scholarship in 1833 while studying at Christ Church.
Joseph Phillimore (1775–1855) was an English civil lawyer and politician, Regius Professor of Civil Law at Oxford from 1809.
The Regius Professorship of Hebrew in the University of Oxford is a professorship at the University of Oxford, founded by Henry VIII in 1546.
The Regius Professorship of Laws is a professorship at Trinity College Dublin (TCD), the only constituent college of Dublin University. It is one of the oldest chairs there, having been founded in 1668. Professor Mark Bell has held the post since July 2015.
Wolfgang Hermann Wernher Ernst is a German lawyer and Regius Professor of Civil Law at the University of Oxford.
Herbert Felix Jolowicz was a British legal scholar. A scholar of Roman law, he was Regius Professor of Civil Law at the University of Oxford from 1948 to 1954.
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