Commentary upon the Pandects

Books included in this one binding - IV., V., VI., IX., X.

Translated by the Advocate from the Supreme Court in the Cape Colony. 

414 pages. Two stamps in ink of previous owner Harry T. Ham. He was an Enrolled Law Practitioner, Administrator of Estates, conveyancer, general agent & auctioneer from Brandfort, O.V.S. Also in front the name and signature of Nehemiah Philips. 

Voet was the son of Paulus Voet, who was the son of famous theologian Gisbertus Voetius. He probably studied in Utrecht, after which he became a professor in Herborn. In 1673 he was made professor of law at the University of Utrecht. From 1680 to his death he was a professor and the chair of law at Leiden, being twice elected as rector. He was a deacon in the Dutch Reformed Church and later worked for the Church as an accountant. 

Voet's most famous work is his Commentarius ad Pandectas  (1698). Unlike other jurists of his day, Voet's Commentary on the Digest was not a mere academic treatise but also an attempt to show how that law applied day-to-day in practice. While the Commentary shows signs of legal humanism, it may also be considered a Dutch form of Usus modernus Pandectarum. Unlike the work of Hugo Grotius and Simon van Leeuwen with which Voet's Commentary has been compared, Voet, as a teacher of law, wrote in Latin and not Dutch, as Latin at the time was the teaching language. Like Grotius, Voet relied upon the theory of natural law as the basis for his systematization of the law.  In the 19th century, Voet's Commentary was translated into German.

It is still an important source of South African law, the common law of which is Roman-Dutch. Sir Henry de Villiers, Chief Justice of the Cape Colony and later of South Africa, made much use of Voet's Commentary.