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Gustav von Hugo

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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GUSTAV VON HUGO (1764-1844), German jurist, was born at Lorrach in Baden, on the 23rd of November 1764. From the gymnasium at Carlsruhe 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 this year to Göttingen as extraordinary professor of law, he became ordinary professor in 1792. In the preface to his Beitrkge zur zivilistischen Biicherkenntnis 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 Canon 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. One man handed on the inert mass to the next in the same condition as he had received it, 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 that historical school of jurisprudence which was continued and further developed by Savigny. His magna opera are the Lehrbuch eines zivilistischen Kursus (7 vols., 1792-1821), in which his method is thoroughly worked out, and the Zivilistisches Magazin (6 vols., 1790-1837). He died at Göttingen on the 15th of September 1844.

For an account of his life see Eyssenhardt, Zur Erinnerung an Gustav Hugo (Berlin, 1845).