The Regius Chair of Civil Law at Oxford was founded by King Henry VIII, who established five such Regius Professorships in the University, the others being the chairs of Divinity, Physic (Old English for Medicine), Hebrew and Greek.[1] The stipend attached to the position was then forty pounds a year.[2] Henry VIII put an end to the teaching of Canon law at both Oxford and Cambridge.[3] Under statutes of 1549, the Regius Professor of Civil Law was to lecture four times a week between the hours of eight and nine in the morning on the Pandects, on the Code, or on the ecclesiastical laws of England. The requirement to give four lectures a week was repeated in the statutes of 1564 and of 1576. The professor was also to moderate at disputations in law.[2]
The exact date of the chair's foundation is uncertain. Some sources say that John Story, the first professor, was appointed in about 1541.[2] No foundation document survives,[2] but in 1544 Robert Weston was recorded as acting as Story's deputy.[4]
The holder of the Regius Professorship is still chosen by The Crown and is still appointed to teach Roman law, its principles and history, and some other branches of the law.[1]
It is uncertain when the first Regius Professor, the BlessedJohn Story, was first appointed. The History of the University of Oxford says that it was by a signed bill, c. 1541, adding that, together with Robert Weston, Story was reappointed for life by letters patent dated 26 February 1546.[5] Payments to Story as professor of Civil Law are found in the accounts of the Treasurer of the Court of Augmentations for the periods Michaelmas 1546 to Michaelmas 1550, part of 1553, and 1556–1557, and for fees and annuities in issues of the Exchequer for 1553–1557.[6]
Story had a tempestuous career. Elected to parliament in 1547, in 1548 he opposed the anti-Roman Catholic laws of King Edward VI, was imprisoned, and on release fled to the Seventeen Provinces. The reign of the Roman Catholic Queen Mary from July 1553 to November 1558 brought Story back into public life. He became a member of parliament again, and after Mary's death opposed the Act of Supremacy of 1559. He was again imprisoned, escaped, was recaptured, and fled again to the Low Countries, where he became a subject of Philip II of Spain. He was kidnapped by agents of Queen Elizabeth I, imprisoned in the Tower of London, where he was tortured, and finally in 1571 was hanged, drawn and quartered.[7]
Although prestigious, the Regius Chair has not always been effective for teaching purposes. In 1846, a select committee of the House of Commons began to inquire into the state of legal education in the United Kingdom, and its report later the same year showed the emptiness of the title of Regius Professor of Civil Law at Oxford at that time. Dr Joseph Phillimore, who had held the chair since 1809 and who continued to hold it until his death in 1855 at the age of eighty, admitted in a series of evasive replies to the select committee that his subject had not been taught at Oxford for almost a hundred years. Dr Philip Bliss, Registrar of the University, revealed that the university had no examinations in any "legal science". Although the degree of Bachelor of Civil Law was still awarded, the "disputations" which led to such an award were an empty formality.[8]
In 1988, Peter Birks was appointed, holding office until his death in 2004. He was a specialist on the law of Restitution.[14]
After a vacancy of more than a year, Boudewijn Sirks was appointed in December 2005 and took up the post in 2006, his previous career having been in teaching philosophy and law at the universities of Leiden, Amsterdam, Utrecht, and Frankfurt.[1]
In 2015, Sirks was succeeded by Wolfgang Ernst,[15] whose research focuses on Roman law.[16]
List of Regius Professors of Civil Law
c. 1541–1557: John Story (for much of that time jointly with Robert Weston and William Aubrey)[3][6][7][17]
^ abPublic Record Office: PRO E 323/3, rot. 91, 4, rot 38/39, 5, rot 35/37, 6, rot. 22/24, E 405/499, 507, fo. 75v, 510
^ abcJOHN STOREY online at saints.sqpn.com (accessed 23 February 2008)
^ abAston, T. H. (ed.), The History of the University of Oxford, Volume VII, Part 2 (Oxford, 1984) p. 395 online at books.google.com (accessed 23 February 2008)