| Sir Edward Coke is the most famous English jurist in China, his thoughts and standpoints are familiar to Chinese scholars, especially the dispute between King James and he. But the works of Sir Edward Coke is not studied by Chinese scholars. This paper come back to the Coke's Reports and Institutes, discuss Coke's contributions to the early modernization of the English legal scholarship.The Introduction is about some textual problems. The First is a review about the study history of the Edward Coke. The second is the about the meaning of the topic and the early modernization of legal scholarship. The last is a outline of the history of English legal scholarship.Chapter One and Two is the life and times of Sir Edward Coke, is about the background of the Report and Institutes. Sir Edward Coke had been a lawyer, a Attorney-General, a Chief Justice and a Parliament Man, the career is the sources of the legal thoughts of Edward Coke. As to the early modernization of the English legal scholarship, there are two choices between Sir Fransic Bacon and Sir Edward Coke.Chapter Three is the analysis of the textual structural of the Reports and Institutes. As to the Reports, first is about the sources and publication of the Reports, second is discussion about the Preface and the classical case, the last is take the Dr Bonham's Case for example. As to the Institutes, the first is the introduction about the writing, publication and the topic of the four volumes, and take the Coke upon Littleton as an example.Chapter Four is the analysis of the contents and form of the Reports and Institutes. I will discuss the germ of the modern scholarship in the Institutes. In the thoughts of the legal scholarship, the"artificial reason"in the Institutes is a modern thoughts. In the divisions of the legal scholarship, the interpretation of the Magna Carta and the report of the Shelley's Case and the Slade'Case is the begin of the modern transformation of the English legal scholarship of Constitution, Property and Contract. In the legal scholarship of the case law, Coke not only lead a new era of the English case report, but also lead the real judgements into the English legal textbook. At last, the Institutes is"the first modern legal textbook"in the history of the English legal education.Chapter Four is about the critics and the challenge about the modernity of the Institutes, I will give the my answer to those critics and disputes. Under the drawbacks of the system of the Institutes, there is another way lead to the early modernization of the English legal scholarship.In conclusion, I will discuss the value of experience of Coke's Institutes to the modernization of the Chinese legal scholarship in our times. On one hand, it will lead us pay attention to the local legal scholarship; on another, it will also lead us emphasize the knowledge of the local judges, and attempts to take those knowledge into the modern system of Chinese legal scholarship. |
