Gustav Hugo

Gustav Hugo

Gustav Conrad Hugo (23 November 1764 – 15 September 1844) was a German jurist. Hugo is generally regarded as a pioneer and co-founder of the 19th-century Historical School.

Biography

Hugo was born at Lörrach in Baden. From the gymnasium at Karlsruhe he passed in 1782 to the University of Göttingen, where he studied law for three years. Having received the appointment of tutor to the prince of Anhalt-Dessau, he took his doctor's degree at the University of Halle in 1788. Recalled in the same year to Göttingen as extraordinary professor of law, he became a full professor in 1792. In the preface to his Beiträge zur civilistischen Bucherkenntniss der letzten vierzig Jahre (1828–1829) he gives a sketch of the condition of the civil law teaching at Göttingen at that time.

The Roman and German elements of the existing law were, without criticism or differentiation, welded into an ostensible whole for practical needs, with the result that it was difficult to say whether historical truth or practical ends were most prejudiced. As it was passed from person to person, new errors crept in, and even the best of teachers could not escape from the false method which had become traditional. These were the evils which Hugo set himself to combat, and he became the founder of the German Historical School of jurisprudence which was continued and further developed by Savigny. He followed the system of institutions going back to the High Classicist Gaius and analyzed particularly critically the law of obligations (a precursor to the "entire civil law").

His main work is the Lehrbuch eines civilistischen Cursus (1792–1821), published in seven volumes; in addition, the Zivilistische Magazin (1790–1837), published in six volumes, is of importance. In the second volume of the civilistischen Cursus, Hugo deals with natural law under the title Naturrecht als eine Philosophie des positiven Rechts, besonders des Privatrechts. Up to the present, the work has been interpreted in the light of a continuation of Kantian legal doctrine.

Works

Major publications of Gustav Hugo include:

References

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: 
• Gabor Hamza, "Entstehung und Entwicklung der modernen Privatrechtsordnungen und die römischrechtliche Tradition" (Budapest, 2009) pp. 189-192.