Valparaiso University Law Review Volume 18 Number 3 Spring 1984 pp.569-629 Spring 1984 Law and Belief in Three Revolutions Harold J. Berman Follow this and additional works at: https://scholar.valpo.edu/vulr Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Harold J. Berman, Law and Belief in Three Revolutions, 18 Val. U. L. Rev. 569 (1984). Available at: https://scholar.valpo.edu/vulr/vol18/iss3/1 This Seegers Lecture is brought to you for free and open access by the Valparaiso University Law School at ValpoScholar. It has been accepted for inclusion in Valparaiso University Law Review by an authorized administrator of ValpoScholar. For more information, please contact a ValpoScholar staff member at
[email protected]. Berman: Law and Belief in Three Revolutions ValparaisoUniversity Law Review Volume 18 Summer 1984 Number 3 LAW AND BELIEF IN THREE REVOLUTIONS* HAROLD J. BERMAN** I. GENERAL INTRODUCTION ........................... 569 II. THE LUTHERAN REFORMATION AND GERMAN LAW . 572 III. THE PURITAN REVOLUTION AND ENGLISH LAW .... 590 IV. THE ENLIGHTENMENT, THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, AND THE NAPOLEONIC CODES .......................... 613 I. GENERAL INTRODUCTION Periodically in the history of the West there have occurred revolutionary changes in the predominant system of beliefs held by the people of a given country or countries. Thus in the early sixteenth century the rise of Protestantism, especially in its Lutheran form, reflected a major shift in the belief system of most persons-not only of Protestants -living in the numerous polities that then made up the German Empire. Some four generations later, in the mid-seventeenth century, various Calvinist and neo-Calvinist beliefs became predomi- nant in English social life, espoused not only by Puritans and other so-called Non-Conformists but also by many who remained loyal to Anglicanism.