German Legal Theory

Mon, 06 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The Historical School and Pandectism

German legal theory in the nineteenth century was dominated by the historical school of law, whose leading figure was Friedrich Carl von Savigny. In response to the call for codification by A. F. J. Thibaut, Savigny argued in Of the Vocation of Our Age for Legislation and Jurisprudence (1814) that law develops organically from the Volksgeist — the spirit of the people — rather than through rationalist legislation. Savigny’s historical approach treated law as a cultural artefact that evolves through history, and his Roman-law oriented research laid the methodological foundation for the Pandectist school (Pandektenwissenschaft). The Pandectists, led by scholars such as Bernhard Windscheid and Georg Friedrich Puchta, constructed a highly systematic and conceptual jurisprudence (Begriffsjurisprudenz — conceptual jurisprudence) that treated the Roman legal sources as a closed system from which specific legal rules could be logically deduced. The Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch (BGB) of 1900, Germany’s civil code, is the enduring monument of Pandectist scholarship, structured according to the Pandectist system of five books — General Part, Obligations, Property, Family, and Succession — with its characteristically abstract and conceptual style.

legal theory on ExcellentWiki - Legal Encyclopedia

German Legal Theory

The Historical School and Pandectism