Preface
This book is aimed primarily at students of law in Scottish universities, who are either studying Roman law for its own sake, or who are exploring the conÂnections between Roman and modern law.
The experienced reader may ask why such a book is necessary. After all, there exist already student textbooks on Roman law that are of undoubted excellence. It must be said, though, that the existing textbooks that are available in English tend not to have much to say about Scotland. Where they talk about modern law, this is much more likely to be English law than Scots law. However, the much greater importance of Roman law in the development of the Scottish legal tradition, compared with that south of the border, means that students of Scots law have special needs in this regard. While we are fortunate to live in a time when there is a growing body of first-class scholarly literature on Scots law and its history — a greater body than at any previous time — most of this is at an advanced level. There is very little for the beginner or for the non-expert. It has seemed to me since I was an undergraduate law student that there has been an urgent need for a textbook on Roman law written with the Scots law student in mind. When Edinburgh University Press expressed a willingness to consider publishing such a book, I was therefore delighted to take up this task. I have been very grateful for their patient support through the whole process of writing the book.This book attempts to do two things. First, it gives an account of Roman priÂvate law as it developed through the Roman period. Second, I have attempted to show how that law influenced later law, and in particular Scots law. In pursuance of this, there are references to Scots law (and, to a lesser extent, other legal systems) throughout. In doing this, I have tried to avoid interrupting the flow of the discusÂsion of Roman law too much, in the hope that those interested only in the Roman law will be able to skip over discussion of later law without excessive difficulty.
In writing this book, I have benefited from the expertise of many others. I remain grateful to my own teachers. In addition, a number of my fellow teachÂers of Roman law gave generously of their time to read and comment on draft versions of parts of the book. I am grateful for their comments, which have greatly improved the final result. In this regard, I am particularly grateful to DrJonathan Brown of the University of Strathclyde and to Gordon Cameron of the University of Dundee. None of these people, of course, bears any responsiÂbility for remaining errors or obscurities. My greatest debt of gratitude, however, is to my wife, Dr Katherine Anderson. In addition to being my great support through twenty years of marriage, she has also read and commented on the whole book in draft.
References to Scots law are intended to be correct as at 29 February 2020.
Craig Anderson Aberdeen
Ides of March, ab urbe condita 2773 (15 March 2020)