Legal Dissertation on the Abstinence of Natural Law from the Fallacious Rules of the Putative Summary Process

§. 4. Truly, if the matter is inspected more deeply, we judge it to be of a higher investigation. In the first place, it must be noted whether today both civil and canon law rely on the same foundation and principle, or the same tradition. For it is known that not only civil law itself and its body, which was handed down to us by the Glossators and their oracle after Irnerius and Accursius, but also those things which we assume from civil law, are nothing but the juice and blood of the Gloss, explaining the Roman laws in such a way, and all subsequent Jurisconsults after the Glossators were founded as students of Bologna more on the traditions of those men than on the origins of the laws themselves. And furthermore, which is more important, since canon law was being reduced into order at almost the same time, it was instructed by the same principles and handed down to interpreters of the same kind, and thus also regarding the laws to be founded at that time, there is no doubt that the same matter and the same principles came down to us in both. And thence these foundations could not be rooted out again, even if later some men, led by Roman history, receded from the traditions of the Glossators, such as Duarenus, Hottomannus, Cujacius, and others, whom the Illustrious Lord Thomasius mentions in his "Grund-Lehren" (Fundamental Teachings), Part 2, number 32.

§. 5. For after Irnerius in Italy, and after him the rest, taught the Roman law—supposing, however, that they were imbued with the customs of the Lombards and their own practice—and Accursius wrote the perpetual Gloss, rejecting the rest, and at that time simple students lived only by that authority, such was the authority of the Gloss thereafter that the students, and whoever else treated law, would not even in a dream think of any other law than the Gloss. Concerning this matter, it will be helpful to have produced at least some things about its authority and praises; for it was commonly felt thus: 1. That one should not recede from the saying of the Gloss, as from a perpetual chariot of truth. 2. That just as he who does not know how to ride holds himself to the saddle, so he who ought to judge should hold himself to the Gloss. 3. That he who adheres to the Gloss can never err. 4. That it is foolish to consult against the Gloss, and those Doctors who wish to infringe upon the Gloss are said to be dreaming. Hence 5. Cynus exclaimed to a certain Advocate: Hear thy idol, the Gloss; and 6. All Doctors magnify the Gloss. All these things, with infinitely more, were collected by Cardinal Tuschus in his "Practicable Conclusions," Vol. 4, folio 169, letter G.