St. Louis borrows
from that treasury many of its provisions, and it was constantly cited
in pleadings before the parliament of Paris, either as obligatory by way
of authority, or at least as written wisdom, to which great deference
was shown.[804] Yet its study was long prohibited in the university of
Paris, front a disposition of the popes to establish exclusively their
decretals, though the prohibition was silently disregarded.[805]

[Sidenote: Its introduction into England.]

As early as the reign of Stephen, Vacarius, a lawyer of Bologna, taught
at Oxford with great success; but the students of scholastic theology
opposed themselves, from some unexplained reason, to this new
jurisprudence, and his lectures were interdicted.[806] About the time of
Henry III. and Edward I. the civil law acquired some credit in England;
but a system entirely incompatible with it had established itself in our
courts of justice; and the Roman jurisprudence was not only soon
rejected, but became obnoxious.[807] Every where, however, the clergy
combined its study with that of their own canons; it was a maxim that
every canonist must be a civilian, and that no one could be a good
civilian unless he were also a canonist. In all universities, degrees
are granted in both laws conjointly; and in all courts of ecclesiastical
jurisdiction, the authority of Justinian is cited, when that of Gregory
or Clement is wanting.[808]

[Sidenote: The elder civilians little regarded.]

I should earn little gratitude for my obscure diligence, were I to dwell
on the forgotten teachers of a science that attracts so few. These elder
professors of Roman jurisprudence are infected, as we are told, with the
faults and ignorance of their time; failing in the exposition of ancient
law through incorrectness of manuscripts and want of subsidiary
learning, or perverting their sense through the verbal subtleties of
scholastic philosophy. It appears that, even a hundred years since,
neither Azzo and Accursius, the principal civilians of the thirteenth
century, nor Bartolus and Baldus, the more conspicuous luminaries of the
next age, nor the later writings of Accolti, Fulgosius, and
Panormitanus, were greatly regarded as authorities; unless it were in
Spain, where improvement is always odious, and the name of Bartolus
inspired absolute deference.[809] In the sixteenth century, Alciatus and
the greater Cujacius became, as it were, the founders of a new and more
enlight