THE CONSISTORIAL DECISIONS OF THE COMMISSARIES OF EDINBURGH, 1564 TO 1576/7. Ed Thomas M Green Edinburgh: The Stair Society (www.stairsociety.org), 2014. lxxvi + 484 pp. ISBN 978187251 7285. £45.
| Pages | 287-289 |
| DOI | 10.3366/elr.2015.0284 |
| Date | 01 May 2015 |
| Published date | 01 May 2015 |
Philosophers are not alone in being troubled by what H L A Hart famously called “the pathology and embryology of legal systems” (
The last example of UDI in Scotland occurred in the 1560s, when two parliaments in Edinburgh declared the realm's secession from the Catholic Church, sometimes described by historians as the first example of a fully functioning state in Europe. The secession was particularly problematic in relation to matters previously left to the regulation of the canon law and the adjudication of the church courts. How, for example, could a couple know whether a valid marriage existed between them? What law, if any, was applicable, and before which courts, if any, could disputes be determined? Could the authority of the Catholic Church be abrogated by the legislative fiat of a Scottish Parliament? On what basis could that question be answered? What if expert lawyers thought one thing but lay people thought another? What if people continued to raise disputes before representatives of the old church, or began to raise disputes before representatives of the new church who had not been formally authorised to deal with them? What if the new courts made use of the old law while rejecting the traditional understanding of its authority, or if the law they...
To continue reading
Request your trial