Mirror of Justice

Permit me to flag a very interesting article by Professor Samuel Bray: The Influence of the Catholic Tradition on the Common Law.The piece (drawn, I believe, from a talk on the same subject that Sam gave at Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law, at the Center directed by Kevin Walsh and Joel Alicea) discusses three ways in which Catholic thought shaped the common law tradition. One of the difficulties in such a project, Sam says, is that the common law tradition is largely a post-16th century English phenomenon, when the role of Catholicism was, shall we say, diminished. Here is the abstract of the piece, followed by a few little on-the-fly reflections:

This essay considers the influence of the Catholic intellectual tradition on the common law. As a preliminary matter, the essay notes that the term "Catholic intellectual tradition" is of recent vintage, though its referent is much older. It identifies three mechanisms of influence: inheriting, conversing, and generating. For inheriting, the essay notes that some common law doctrines, such as the Chancellor's conscience, were inherited from the Catholic intellectual tradition. For conversing, the essay notes the conversation across confessional boundaries in early modern Europe, which was facilitated by the use of Latin and scholastic curricula well after the Reformation. This point, while familiar to early modern intellectual historians because of revisionist work over the last quarter century, may be surprising to legal scholars. Finally, for generating, this essay shows that the common law judges, by their own lights, were participants in the Catholic intellectual tradition. This is demonstrated, for example, by analysis of Chief Justice Vaughan's opinion in Thomas v. Sorrell (1673/4). When this intellectual tradition is viewed without anachronistic narrowness, its influence on the common law is substantial.

The piece is short, sweet, and full of great learning and insight. I highly recommend it. One rapid thought on the "anachronistic narrowness" point quoted above in the abstract. On what he calls the "generative" influence of Catholic thought on the common law, Sam argues very interestingly that the division of Catholic Intellectual Tradition from Protestant thought is likely of relatively recent vintage (say, the 19th century or so, especially in the resistance of the Church to modernity during that period), and that the common lawyers of the early period of the common law did think of themselves as working from (and perhaps even within) the Catholic Intellectual Tradition. One might call it instead the catholic intellectual tradition that is, Sam suggests, the tradition that had influence on the early common law--the Western Christian or Christian apostolic tradition unbound by today's anachronistic divisions.

There are some comparatively small questions I had about some of Sam's more specific claims. He says, for example, that each "side"--"Roman" and "non-Roman"--argued in "Newmanesque" fashion that "whoever did not change or augment the deposit of faith was the truly catholic side." But is this really a full description of the disagreements that were themselves generated in and just after the period Sam surveys? There are not too many people in this world who would like more to believe that everybody is actually, deep down, a traditionalist (perhaps Sam is one). But disagreements about tradition and development (a/k/a change), it seems to me, eventually led to Cardinal Newman's own position, decisions, and intellectual contribution. I wonder whether they materialized quite as late as Sam suggests.

Nevertheless, in highlighting one of Sam's perhaps more controversial points above, I want to emphasize that Sam seems to me quite correct on all three influences with respect to the thought of learned commentators such as Coke, Hale, St. German, and others (perhaps even as late as Mansfield and Blackstone, for example), as well as judges such as the one who wrote the lead opinion in cases like Thomas v. Sorrell (1673/4). "[G]iven the cross-confessional argument and pollination in the early modern period across the republic of letters," Sam contends, "it is plausible to think that sharply demarcated “Catholic” and “Protestant” intellectual traditions are from a later time." As I say, just when that "later time" began is difficult to determine, as Sam properly acknowledges (the 19th century seems quite late, indeed), but at least as to the earlier common law writers, his view seems (to this admitted non-expert in English legal history) persuasive. Check out this very fine piece.