collection of essays Studies in History and Jurisprudence where one of the overall topics was to compare Ancient Rome and Colonial (or Imperial) Britain with the epistemological assumption that it was possible to state that they were similar societies.This was a wide-spread view at the time.25 Furthermore, the cultural-philosophical reconstruction of Rome was directly aimed at understanding and defining a legal and social modernity. By comparing legal institutions and legal methods, Bryce found his ideal British legal world in Rome. Interestingly, the colonial aspect of his comparisons shows a clear distance to similar German Pandect discourses which were more legal in outlook.26 In many ways Bryce invented his own model between the analytical model of John Austin and the historical-comparative jurisprudence of Henry Sumner Maine (even though he ascribed himself to the latter): Bryce’s lofty comparisons were only possible because he did not include the radical model of social and legal evolution that was engraved in Maine’s writings, especially after Ancient Law(1861). Bryce defined the modernity of legal science as historical–comparative, rejecting the analytical model and emphasizing the practical tasks of jurisprudence. Those aspects which the mid-Victorian literature had stressed to be the universal modern features in Roman legal thinking – system, principles, logical consistency – did not have the same relevance any longer.27 Those qualities had to be seen under the heading of a larger category called “consistence” signalizing both theoretical and practical considerations.28 The invention of the ‘modern Praetor’ by Bryce had a clear connection with the criticism of the legal quality of both court practice and parliamentary legislation in England. The praise for the Praetor was unlimited: In the Praetor, said Bryce, Roman law had “an advanre cht swi s s e n scha f t al s j ur i st i sch e dok t r i n 188 25 Christopher Stray, ClassicsTransformed. Schools,University and Society in England 18301960(Oxford1998) Ch5-6 andJose Harris, Private Lives,Public Spirit: Britain18701914 (Harmondsworth 1994) pp. 245 sq. 26 An English version more similar to the contemporary Pandect type German was made byThomas Erskin Holland (1835-1926) inThe Elements of Jurisprudence (London 1880) pp. 1 sq. 27 Henry Sumner Maine,“Roman Law and Legal Education” (1856) in: Maine, Village Communities in the East and West (3.ed London 1876) pp. 330-383 and James Bryce, The Academical Study of Civil Law(London1871) cfr.M.H. Hoeflich, Roman and Civil Law and the Development of Anglo-American Jurisprudence in the Nineteenth Century (Athens 1997) pp. 81-85. 28 Bryce,“The Methods of Legal Science” in: Bryce, Studies II pp. 607-637.
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