ABSTRACT
The year 1492 saw not only the final expulsion of the Moors from Spain; it was also the year in which Christopher Columbus discovered America. It was an age of radical revision with vast opportunities for adventure. It was not an age for acceptance of orthodoxies and resistance to change. The Humanist approach to civil law marked a return, in full accord with the spirit of the age, to a study of the texts rather than reliance upon the commentaries of earlier ages. According to the Second Scholastics, so-called because they were perceived to be building upon the work of St. Thomas Aquinas and his followers, God had disclosed his will for Man by making it manifest in the workings of nature. Humanism had undermined the authority of the Roman law texts, which gave rise to the question of whither jurists should look to find their authorities in the future.
