FROM REGIONAL TO PERSONAL SCHOOLS OF LAW? A REEVALUATION

Abstract

AbstractWestern scholars have long regarded the legal history of the second/eighth century and the early part of the third/ninth as being dominated by the so-called geographical schools. Since scholars also hold that the later schools of law were personal in nature, it is widely assumed that a transformation took place from geographical schools to personal schools. In this article, I question these views, arguing (1) that geographical schools never existed; (2) that the later schools were not personal; and (3) that a transformation did in fact take place, albeit from individual juristic doctrines to doctrinal schools.