At this point, law professors and reformers will protest. To understand Blackstone and the structure of his Commentaries and his impact on modern English law, one surely does not need to understand Latin? Sadly one does, and to read the sources he used.212 To understand modern English conflict of laws, surely one does not need to know Latin and the source that Joseph Story in the U.S.A. so tragically misunderstood?213 Sadly one does. To go beyond the frontiers of the E.U., one may ask why matrimonial property systems in the U.S.A. are so different in the western states from those in the east. One surely does not need to know Visigothic law of the fifth century, and medieval doctrines of accession of property?214 But one does. The relationship between law and the society in which it operates is enormously complicated, and can only be understood through comparative legal history. The New York Chancellor James Kent is famous for the use he made of French law. How different would have been the development of U.S. law if Kent had been able to read German? It might be objected that with the existence of a plethora of translators of E.U. drafts and documents, lack of skill in other languages is no barrier to sensible law reform. The objection, sensible as it appears, would make sense only if there was no such thing as legal culture and legal tradition. Law, as it exists now, will be the starting point for suggestions of reform, and today’s law has ancient roots that need to be understood and which will not be translated for E.U. use. Naturally, for private law the stress within the E.U. for a common law must be on the future. But that is what makes comparative legal history so vital. Only an understanding of legal culture and legal tradition can illuminate and explain the interrelations between one system and another, and the fundamental values.Why was the substance of 212 See, Watson, Roman Law and Comparative Law, pp. 166ff., 275 ff. 213 See Alan Watson, Joseph Story and the Comity of Errors (Athens, GA, 1992). 214 See Watson, Society and Legal Change, pp. 107ff.
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