Christopher St. Germain
Encyclopedia
Christopher St. Germain was a 16th century English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 common lawyer, legal writer, and Protestant polemicist.

Biography

Christopher St. Germain was in born 1460 to Sir Henry and Anne St. Germain of Shilton
Shilton, Warwickshire
Shilton is a village and civil parish in the English county of Warwickshire. The parish of Shilton also includes the nearby hamlet of Barnacle, Warwickshire, and in the 2001 census had a population of 826....

, Warwickshire
Warwickshire
Warwickshire is a landlocked non-metropolitan county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, although the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare...

.

In 1528, St. Germain published his first book, Dialogus de fundamentis legum Anglie et de conscientia, known as Doctor and Student after the titles of the two interlocutors, a doctor of divinity and a student of the laws of England, a barrister. Doctor and Student is a study of the relationship between the English common law
Common law
Common law is law developed by judges through decisions of courts and similar tribunals rather than through legislative statutes or executive branch action...

 and conscience. It was the first study of the role of equity in English law, and set the terms for later discussions. An English translation, probably done by St. Germain himself, appeared in 1530 or 1531. A second dialogue appeared in English in 1530, along with additional chapters referred to as the New Addicions. Although Doctor and Student was written as a discussion of conscience and law, its enduring popularity into the 19th century was a result of its clear introduction to common law concepts. Until Blackstone published his Commentaries, it was used as a student primer.

In 1532, St. Germain published the Treatise Concerning the Division between the Spiritualty and Temporalty, a pamphlet purporting to mediate between the laity and the clergy, but, as Thomas More
Thomas More
Sir Thomas More , also known by Catholics as Saint Thomas More, was an English lawyer, social philosopher, author, statesman and noted Renaissance humanist. He was an important councillor to Henry VIII of England and, for three years toward the end of his life, Lord Chancellor...

 argued in a response, his Apology, actually interested in increasing the divide. St. Germain responded to More's Apology with the dialogue Salem and Bizance, to which More responded with his Debellation of Salem and Bizance in 1533. The following year St Germain published his Additions of Salem and Bizance, the final text in the dispute between St. Germain and More.

A number of anonymous pamphlets, very likely written by St. Germain, appeared in the 1530s, before his death at the age of eighty in 1540.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK