Appendix CASE ONE - Collection Point® | The Total Digital Asset ...

Paul Vinogradoff as Legal Historian 215
had a gift for inspiring their interest. Comparisons of different texts were made and
the meaning of each was explained. After this critical analysis the whole picture of
the mode of life of the Salian Franks which was being studied was reconstructed. It
was a great pleasure to participate in the work and watch it.
In the nineties of last century educational establishments were founded in
Moscow. Their aim was to disseminate scientific knowledge widely throughout
the population. On the initiative of the historian Professor Milyukov a Home
Study Committee was set up. The idea was comparable to some extent with
university extension courses in England. In the first decade of its existence
the editorial board of the committee, with the active assistance of Paul
Vinogradoff, published significant works on law and government. These
included translations of A.V. Dicey, Leon Duguit, Gabriel Tarde and of
many other prominent scholars. In the same period Vinogradoff wrote a
textbook for secondary schools and prepared a book of readings on history
in four volumes for which he was later awarded the Major Prize of Peter the
Great by the Academy of Sciences.
At the beginning of this century Vinogradoff was engaged in gathering
together and summing up the results of his long life of research. The idea
was to bring everything together in a great treatise under the title Outlines
of Historical Jurisprudence. Historical jurisprudence, he thought, might be
covered under the following scheme: 1. Origins in Totemistic Society; 2. Tribal
Law; 3. Civic Law [the law of city states]; 4. Medieval Law, in its combination
as Canon and Feudal law; 5. Individualistic jurisprudence; and 6. Beginnings
of socialistic jurisprudence. 11 The first volume published in fact contained
the introduction and the section on tribal law. The second, published in
1923, 12 contained the section on the jurisprudence of the Greek city states
but, although a third volume on the medieval jurisprudence of Western
Christendom was announced in it as being in preparation, Vinogradoff was
able to finish and publish only the two volumes; he died in 1925.
The introduction set out compactly and lucidly the views and theories of
Vinogradoff s predecessors and surveyed the whole field of jurisprudence.
In the first part he dealt with the interrelation of law and other human
sciences: logic, psychology, social science and political theory. In the second
he described the different methods and schools of jurisprudence: rationalists,
nationalists, evolutionists and modern tendencies. From his stance he was
critical of Marxist doctrine for its materialistic fatalism and for depriving law
of moral authority, as well as for considering law as merely a reflection of
the domination of one or other of the classes into which society is divided.
He saw this as a great simplification, especially in relation to sociological
interpretation of the nature of law and the social functions of law. 13
Vinogradoff took the view that learning law without organizing ideas is
11 Outlines of Historical Jurisprudence, i (London, etc., 1920), 158.
12 Outlines of Historical Jurisprudence, ii (London, etc., 1923).
13 'Historical Types of International Law', Collected Papers, ii, 255-58.