Читать книгу A Concise History of the Common Law - Theodore F. T. Plucknett - Страница 45

The mediaeval man has never succeeded in ridding himself of his reputation for lawless behaviour. It is possible, no doubt, to overestimate the amount of disorder that existed, but nevertheless the fact remains that violence is a conspicuous element in almost any mediaeval chronicle. Born amid the ruins of the Roman peace, the early days of the middle ages witnessed the successive failures of several attempts to restore some semblance of authority; and this confusion was further confounded by persistent invasions. Feudalism was the compromise finally reached, and although it made wide concessions to the military idea, nevertheless in the end it accomplished the difficult task of subjecting armed force to the rule of law. Naturally progress was quicker in some places than in others, but everywhere at least a lip service was paid to the idea of law, and as the middle ages proceed it becomes more and more evident that law was winning. Religion had an important rôle in this development and contributed the valuable conception of Jehovah as a law-giver and law-enforcer—a conception derived from Judaism. Out of all the confusion and disaster of the middle ages there arose the unanimous cry for law, which should be divine in its origin, supreme in its authority, rendering justly to every man his due. Of the many intellectual systems devised in the middle ages, there was one which proved to be a practical as well as an intellectual answer to some of the most urgent of life’s problems, and that was law, law which was directly based upon the divine attribute of justice.

It might have been that the idea of law was no more than a despairing refuge in an impossible Utopia, devised by minds frightened by the evils around them. But Utopias belong to modern history; the mediaeval man was above all a man of action, and out of the night of the dark ages he began to build the fabric of law. To him the rule of law was not only a worthy achievement of the spirit, but also a great active crusade, and the greatest of all the crusades, because it alone survived its defeats.