The Middle Ages: The Systematic Renovation of Scientia Iuris

This Chapter continues the book’s appraisal of legal education and practice as intellectual, meaning-seeking endeavours aimed at securing order and avoiding chaos through knowledge and reason. Medieval jurisprudence is this Chapter’s case study. Specifically, the Chapter engages several accounts of medieval jurisprudence’s epistemic-ontological techniques, practices, and objectives with the aim to contextualise philosophically the renovation of scientia iuris’ which occurred through the establishment of modern, systematic legal education and practice in medieval Europe. In so doing, the Chapter also shows the limits of previous accounts of the medieval jurists’ analytical and argumentative techniques, providing readers which a fresh and well-rounded perspective on the spirit animating and the outcomes produced by medieval jurisprudence.