Title: A short history of comparative law and its methods
Abstract: This chapter offers a brief history of the evolution of legal comparison through a focus on the most critical legal scholars and their contribution to the creation and development of comparative law and its methodology. Comparison of legal rules or constitutions has ancient origins, and every age has left a legacy. The Author has divided this chapter into nine periods: the ancient world, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the 17th and 18th centuries, and the 19th century, from the Paris Congress (1900) to the first half of the 20th century. To claim legal comparison as the result of its history is also to acknowledge that most of today’s scholars learned the lesson of ancient masters of legal comparison. This perspective is useful for law students, both undergraduate and postgraduate, taking courses in comparative law.