John Story
Who was the office holder of Regius Professor of Civil Law (Oxford) from 1541 to 1546?
Regius Professor of Civil Law ( Oxford ) The Regius Chair of Civil Law , founded in the 1540s , is one of the oldest of the professorships at the University of Oxford . Foundation . The Regius Chair of Civil Law at Oxford was founded by King Henry VIII , who established five such Regius Professorships in the University , the others being the chairs of Divinity , Physic ( Old English for Medicine ) , Hebrew and Greek . The stipend attached to the position was then forty pounds a year . Henry VIII put an end to the teaching of Canon law at both Oxford and Cambridge . Under statutes of 1549 , the Regius Professor of Civil Law was to lecture four times a week between the hours of eight and nine in the morning on the Pandects , on the Code , or on the ecclesiastical laws of England . The requirement to give four lectures a week was repeated in the statutes of 1564 and of 1576 . The professor was also to moderate at disputations in law . The exact date of the chairs foundation is uncertain . Some sources say that John Story , the first professor , was appointed in about 1541 . No foundation document survives , but in 1544 Robert Weston was recorded as acting as Storys deputy . The holder of the Regius Professorship is still chosen by The Crown and is still appointed to teach Roman law , its principles and history , and some other branches of the law . First Professor . It is uncertain when the first Regius Professor , the Blessed John Story , was first appointed . The History of the University of Oxford says that it was by a signed bill , c . 1541 , adding that , together with Robert Weston , Story was reappointed for life by letters patent dated 26 February 1546 . Payments to Story as professor of Civil Law are found in the accounts of the Treasurer of the Court of Augmentations for the periods Michaelmas 1546 to Michaelmas 1550 , part of 1553 , and 1556–1557 , and for fees and annuities in issues of the Exchequer for 1553–1557 . Story had a tempestuous career . Elected to parliament in 1547 , in 1548 he opposed the anti-Roman Catholic laws of King Edward VI , was imprisoned , and on release fled to the Seventeen Provinces . The reign of the Roman Catholic Queen Mary from July 1553 to November 1558 brought Story back into public life . He became a member of parliament again , and after Marys death opposed the Act of Supremacy of 1559 . He was again imprisoned , escaped , was recaptured , and fled again to the Low Countries , where he became a subject of Philip II of Spain . He was kidnapped by agents of Queen Elizabeth I , imprisoned in the Tower of London , where he was tortured , and finally in 1571 was hanged , drawn and quartered . Story was beatified by Pope Leo XIII in 1886 . Period of decline . Although prestigious , the Regius Chair has not always been effective for teaching purposes . In 1846 , a Select committee of the House of Commons began to inquire into the state of legal education in the United Kingdom , and its report later the same year showed the emptiness of the title of Regius Professor of Civil Law at Oxford at that time . Dr Joseph Phillimore , who had held the Chair since 1809 and who continued to hold it until his death in 1855 at the age of eighty , admitted in a series of evasive replies to the Select Committee that his subject had not been taught at Oxford for almost a hundred years . Dr Philip Bliss , Registrar of the University , revealed that the University had no examinations in any legal science . Although the degree of Bachelor of Civil Law was still awarded , the disputations which led to such an award were an empty formality . One of Phillimores eighteenth century predecessors , Robert Vansittart , a noted antiquarian and rake , was appointed Regius Professor in 1767 and held the chair until his death in 1789 . He published antiquarian works , was a close acquaintance of Samuel Johnson , William Hogarth and Paul Whitehead , and was a participant in the debauchery of the Hellfire Club . Vansittarts successor , Thomas Francis Wenman ( 1745–1796 ) , Regius Professor from 1789 until his death , is described in the Dictionary of National Biography as one of the few students of natural history at Oxford and was drowned in the River Cherwell on 8 April 1796 , while collecting botanical specimens . Modern period . After the death of Phillimore in 1855 , the situation improved somewhat . Although the next professor , Sir Travers Twiss , held degrees in Mathematics and Literae Humaniores , he came to the post directly from three years as professor of international law at Kings College , London , where the teaching of law was taken more seriously than at Oxford . His international reputation led to Leopold II , king of the Belgians asking him to draft the constitution of the Congo Free State . Twiss was succeeded in 1870 by James Bryce , 1st Viscount Bryce , a distinguished historian and Liberal politician who for a period combined the Regius chair of civil law with holding office as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and who resigned the chair only in 1893 , a year after joining William Ewart Gladstones Cabinet . In 1955 , the distinguished German academic lawyer David Daube ( 1909–1999 ) , a native of Freiburg im Breisgau , became the first foreign-born Regius Professor of Civil Law at Oxford since the 17th century . He was later a professor-in-residence at the University of California , Berkeley . Daube was succeeded in 1971 by Tony Honoré ( born 1921 ) , a jurist known for his work on ownership , causation and Roman law , who remained in post until 1988 . Although born in London , he was brought up in South Africa , fought in the Second World War and was severely wounded at the First Battle of El Alamein . His contributions to legal philosophy include sixteen books and more than a hundred articles . In 1988 , Peter Birks was appointed , holding office until his death in 2004 . He was a specialist on the law of Restitution . After a vacancy of more than a year , Professor Boudewijn Sirks was appointed in December 2005 and took up the post in 2006 , his previous career having been in teaching philosophy and law at the universities of Leiden , Amsterdam , Utrecht , and Frankfurt . In 2015 , Sirks was succeeded by Wolfgang Ernst . List of Regius Professors of Civil Law . - c . 1541–1557 : John Story ( for much of that time jointly with Robert Weston and William Aubrey ) - 1546–1553 : Robert Weston ( jointly with John Story ) - 1553–1559 : William Aubrey ( for some of that period jointly with John Story ) - 1559–1566 : John Griffith - 1566–1577 : Robert Lougher - 1577–1586 : Griffith Lloyd - 1587–1608 : Alberico Gentili - 1611–1620 : John Budden - 1620–1661 : Richard Zouch - 1661–1672 : Sir Giles Sweit - 1672–1712 : Thomas Bouchier - 1712–1736 : James Bouchier - 1736–1752 : Henry Brooke - 1753–1767 : Herbert Jenner - 1767–1789 : Robert Vansittart - 1789–1796 : Thomas Francis Wenman - 1796–1809 : French Laurence - 1809–1855 : Joseph Phillimore ( 1775–1855 ) - 1855–1870 : Sir Travers Twiss - 1870–1893 : James Bryce , 1st Viscount Bryce - 1893–1919 : Henry Goudy , author of the article on in vol . 23 of the 11th ed . of the Encyclopædia Britannica ( 1911 ) - 1919–1948 : Francis de Zulueta - 1948-1954 : Herbert Felix Jolowicz - 1955–1970 : David Daube - 1971–1988 : Tony Honoré - 1989–2004 : Peter Birks - July 2004 – February 2006 : vacant - 2006–2014 : Boudewijn Sirks - From 1 October 2015 : Wolfgang Ernst