Читать книгу A Concise History of the Common Law - Theodore F. T. Plucknett - Страница 47

The second aspect of this intellectual revival is the Reformation. The study of Greek led scholars to examine the New Testament in the original tongue, and soon they began to interpret it in the light of private judgment instead of following traditional custom. This abandonment of custom is highly significant of the change from mediaeval to modern times. The attempt to reconstruct Christianity from the New Testament and the earliest fathers meant a denial of over a thousand years’ growth and development in Christianity, based upon custom. This denial of the validity of theological development operating through custom and slowly shifting tradition had its parallel in legal history. Custom tends to be depreciated more and more by the State, until finally the legal restrictions within which it is confined eliminate it as one of the major sources of law. In other words, the State and the central organs of government, the courts and the legislature, are becoming the sole source of law.

The quarrel of Henry VIII with the papacy was for a time purely mediaeval in its character. Many a king and noble had been involved in similar matrimonial tangles and had incurred the displeasure of the Holy See. There was even mediaeval precedent for the confiscation of monastic property and the limitation of appeals to the papal court, but the modern spirit appears when the quarrel is carried a step further, and the doctrinal basis of Catholicism is questioned. With the reign of Edward VI the Reformation is definitely accepted as a political weapon against Rome, and (after a short reaction under Mary) the early years of Elizabeth made it the permanent basis of English political and religious life.