Guillaume Budé, Andrea Alciato, and Pierre de l'Estoile: Renaissance
Interpreters of Roman Law,"
Abstract
The renowned humanist Guillaume Budé proposed an interpretation
of a key term in a problematic passage from Justinian's Digest which
sparked interpretations by the Italian humanist jurist Andrea Alciato,
and the French jurist Pierre de l'Estoile (best known as law professor
of the future Protestant reformer Jean Calvin). The debate, in which Calvin
was a minor participant, reveals clearly how each drew upon hermeneutic
principles and assumptions derived from rhetorical and scholastic culture,
principles they sometimes explicitly discussed. It further shows the influence
of professional and personal concerns in each interpreter's reading of
the passage. By considering attitudes toward language, linguistic and historical
change, this study enables us to distinguish scholastic interpretive assumptions,
of which Estoile was a major practitioner, from humanist ones.