Historical School Of Jurisprudence

Question 1

🇫🇷 Montesquieu

Answer 1

Belonged to: France—ancestor to historical jurisprudence.
Core Ideas (3–4 lines):

The Spirit of Laws (1748): Law evolves from social, political, environmental contexts—climate, religion, custom.

Asserts no universal “true law”; what counts as law depends on local customs and circumstances.

Question 2

Friedrich Carl von Savigny (1779–1861)

Answer 2

School’s leader.
Core Ideas (4–5 lines):

Introduced Volksgeist—law as an organic expression of national spirit.

“Law is discovered, not made”; grows like language and dies if national identity fades.

Critiqued rational/natural law and legislating without regard to historical roots.

Lawyers should uncover the people’s law, not impose artificial rules.
Mnemonic: Savigny = “savage vine” → wild vine representing law growing organically.
Memory Hook: Picture vine wrapping around old Germanic runes—law grows from roots, not statutes.

Question 3

Sir Henry Maine

Answer 3

comparative law.
Core Ideas (4–5 lines):

Wrote Ancient Law (1861): introduced the shift from status to contract in legal history.

Proposed four-stage legal development:

1. Divine commands
2. Customary law
3. Exclusive priestly/legal class
4. Codification → later fiction, equity, legislation.

More receptive to codification and legislation than strict historical school.

Balanced popular tradition with the need for rational reform.

Question 4

Georg Friedrich Puchta

Answer 4

Savigny’s protégé.
Core Ideas (3–4 lines):

give the concept of individual will and general will
Refined Savigny: law develops organically but also via interplay between individual will and state.

Focused on resolving conflicts between private rights and public/social needs.

Emphasized the evolutionary method of Roman law to show legal systematic growth.
Mnemonic: Puchta = “push-toward” → pushing law between society and state will.
Memory Hook: Imagine he’s balancing two weights—individual will on one side, state on the other, keeping law centered.