Charles Phineas Sherman (8 June 1874 – 20 July 1962) was a professor of Roman law and canon law at several colleges, including the Yale Law School, the College of William and Mary, and the Boston University School of Law. He wrote many articles and books, of which the best known is Roman Law in the Modern World (1917, 2nd ed. 1922, 3rd ed. 1933).
Biography Sherman was born into an old New England family in West Springfield, Massachusetts.See Charles P. Sherman, Academic Adventures: A Law School Professor's Recollections and Observations 16 (1944). This book contains a full page photograph of the author on the verso of a plate between pages 192-193. The American Sherman family began with Philip Sherman, who emigrated from England in 1634 and became the Colony of Rhode Island's first Secretary.Id. at 12-13. He studied at the public schools of West Springfield and graduated from high school there in 1891 as class valedictorian.Id. at 28.
Sherman received his B.A. degree from Yale University in 1896 and entered Yale Law School the same year.Id.at 86. The three-year Yale Law School undergraduate degree (an LL.B.) could be shortened to two at that time if a student already had earned a B.A., so he took this path and was granted his LL.B. in 1898.Id. at 86-103. That same summer he took the Connecticut bar exam and was admitted to practice there.Id. at 104. Since he was academically inclined he decided not to head into practice immediately. Instead he applied for Yale's D.C.L. (Doctor of Civil Law) program. Sherman completed the requirements in 1899, after only one year, including the writing of his dissertation on a Roman law topic.Id. at 106. His dissertation, which he later mined for several articles, was entitled The Maritime Law of Rome and Some Comparisons with Modern Jurisprudence. Sherman supra note 1 at 113.
Career
Law Practice After receiving his D.C.L. degree from Yale Sherman started practicing law in New Haven, Connecticut, In his memoir, Academic Adventures, Sherman claimed that he did not want his D.C.L. as a teaching credential.Id. at 104. His goal rather was to go to Norfolk, Virginia to practice admiralty law,Id. at 223. but in his memoir Sherman does not indicate why he failed to carry out that plan. Remaining in New Haven, acquired the French and the German translations of the Corpus Juris Civilis (in 1900, shortly after he earned his Doctor of Civil Law degree), regularly visited his old Roman law professor, Albert S. Wheeler, and, at the latter's suggestion, translated Bernard's La Premiere Annee de Droit Roman into English.Id. at 122-123. Sherman's translation is available at https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.32044097731947&seq=31. Sherman also practiced law in New Haven for several years.
Teaching at Yale In 1905, Yale Law School Dean Henry Wade Rogers asked Sherman to take over Professor Wheeler's courses when the latter died.Id. at 126-127. This was the beginning of Sherman's twelve-year stint at Yale, the longest full-time appointment of his career.Regarding Sherman's teaching at Yale, see M.H. Hoeflich, "Roman and Civil Law in American Legal Education and Research Prior to 1930: A Preliminary Study," 1984 U. Ill. L. Rev. 719, 731-733. This was a particularly auspicious year for him in that it also was the year in which he married Miss Julia Rungee.Id. at 136. In the next year, in addition to teaching three courses on Roman law, Sherman's translation of La Premiere Annee de Droit Roman was published,Fernard Bernard, The First Year of Roman Law (Charles P. Sherman, trans., 1906) and he took on the position of Law Librarian at Yale. His translation (which he used for his Roman Law I course), was moderately well received by reviewers.See, for example, W.H. Buckler, "The First Year of Roman Law," 2 Am. Pol. Sci. Rev. 104 (1907), "The First Year of Roman Law," 5 Mich. L. Rev. 154 (1907), "The First Year of Roman Law," 7 Columb. L. Rev. 376 (1907). The reviews expressed some criticisms but were positive on balance. For a full listing of Sherman's writings and reviews of his writings, see Timothy G. Kearley, Roman Law, Classical Education, and Limits on Classical Participation in America into the Twentieth-Century 253-257 (2022). Three of Sherman's books are available on line at "Online Books by Charles Sherman," The Online Books Page, http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupname?key=Sherman%2C%20Charles%20Phineas%2C%201874-
Sherman spent ten of these Yale years researching and writing what he called his magnum opus, Roman Law in the Modern World, which was published in 1917.Charles Phineas Sherman, Roman Law in the Modern World (1917). See Sherman," supra note 1 at 187-188. In that same year, however, Sherman and other non-tenured Yale law School faculty members were forced out by the new dean, Thomas Swan.In a letter to Harvard Law School Dean Roscoe Pound, Sherman said that the new Yale administration "had gotten in its friends and had displaced all faculty members not on a permanent tenure." "Letter from Charles P. Sherman to Roscoe Pound, received June 4, 1917, Folder 00176_013_0288, Roscoe Pound Miscellaneous Correspondence, S, in "The Roscoe Pound Papers, ProQuest History Vault. Dean Swan later was supportive of Justice Fred H. Blume's later Roman law translation efforts.
Other Teaching and Activities For many years afterwards, Sherman looked for a full-time teaching position. His failure to obtain a regular academic position may have resulted from the decidedly mixed reception by scholars of his Roman Law in the Modern World (RLMW). It is a three-volume work of great ambition. Volume one consists of a history of Roman law from its possible beginnings in Babylon, through the Republic and Empire, medieval times, and into the modern world.Volume one's title is: "History of Roman Law and its Descent into English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and other Modern Law." The 2nd edition of volume 1 is available in the Internet Archive at https://archive.org/details/romanlawinmodern0001unse/page/n3/mode/2up Volume two is a "manual," or exposition of the fundamental principles of Roman law, including their expressions in modern legal systems,Volume two is titled: "Manual of Roman Law Illustrated by Anglo-American Law and Modern Codes." while volume three is a bibliography of Roman and civil law by subject.Volume three is: "Subject Guides to the Texts of Roman Law, to the Modern Codes and Legal Literature. RLMW was a huge undertaking that would have taxed the abilities of even the greatest Roman law scholar, and most critics decided Sherman had not been fully up to the task.For a summary of the critical response to RLMW see Kearley, supra note 15 at 96-99.
In 1920 Sherman was appointed as a full professor at the Boston University School of Law ). This was not a full-time teaching position, though, as he had already taken on two positions at a legal publishing company in Boston.Sherman, supra note 1 at 217-218. However, owing to his workload, housing problems, and his mother's poor health, Sherman resigned his position at BU in 1922.Id. at 212, 220.
Three years later, Sherman began what would begin an association with the College of William and Mary that would continue for the rest of his life, teaching first in its history department, then, starting in 1927, at its School of Jurisprudence.Id. at 229, 233. In the former he lectured on Roman civilization and its influence in the modern world, and in the latter he spoke on canon law. Id. Meanwhile, in 1926, at the age of fifty, he was appointed Professor of Canon Law and Modern Church Law at National University Law School in Washington, D.C..Id. at 250. See also "National U Plans Canon Law Course to Begin October 1," Washington Post, Sept. 5, 1926 at S11, and "National U. Opens Law School Term Saturday Evening," Washington Post, Sept. 26, 1926 at R16. Sherman commuted between Washington, D.C. and Williamsburg, teaching in more than one department at each institution, and full-time at neither, until 1935 when he resigned from National and returned to Boston University.See Sherman, supra note 1 at 229, 233, 250, & 258. At National University, he was given an honorary LL.D. degree and taught several courses, including one on his favorite topic of Roman civilization in the modern world,Sherman, supra note 1 at 229 & 266. See also "National U. to give Law Degrees to 300 at Commencement," Washington Post, June 10, 1928 at M15. and another on research in Greek or Hellenic Law.Sherman, supra note 1 at 366. In 1933 Sherman published Roman Readings in Roman Law, the first in a planned two-volume set for use in Roman law courses.Charles Phineas Sherman & Thomas Raymond Robinson, Roman Readings in Roman Law: Vol. 1, Principles and Rules (1933). This volume, according to an advertisement was "[a] collection of nearly 700 excerpts of texts of Roman Law, with English translations on opposite parallel pages . . ." See advertisement attached to Letter from Charles P. Sherman to Roscoe Pound, Dec. 18, 1933, Folder 00176_1-013_0288, Roscoe Pound Miscellaneous Correspondence, S, in "The Roscoe Pound Papers," ProQuest History Vault. The second volume never was published.
In Washington, D.C., Sherman became friends with Professor Salvatore Riccobono.Sherman, supra note 1 at 259-261. Sherman was among the group that organized Riccobono's presentations."Dinner Honors Palarmo Savant: Dr. Riccobono Entertained at Cosmos Club by Capital Men," Washington Post, June 2, 1929 at R3. Sherman also was a member of the council that organized the Riccobono Seminar of Roman Law in America after Riccobono returned to Italy.See Invitation to the Inaugural Session of the Riccobono Seminar, Jan. 8, 1930, Catholic University of America, President Records, Box 62, Folder 17, Riccobono Seminar of Roman Law, 1930-1936 (CUA Archives) Sherman had two papers read at Riccobono Seminar meetings, one of which was introduced by his National University colleague Charles S. Lobingier.See Bul. Riccobono Seminar of Roman Law in America, no. 6, 1936 at 1. Sherman also made a contribution to a festschrift honoring Riccobono.Sherman contributed "The Roman Administrative Marine" to Studi Ononore di Salvatore Riccobono (1936). Sherman, supra note 1 at 113-114
He was rehired as a lecturer in Roman law at Boston University Law School in 1935, teaching a course called Roman and Modern Law.Id. at 274. In 1939, at the age of sixty-five, Sherman was elevated from the status of lecturer to full professor at BU.Id. at 285. In 1942, his Roman Civilization in the Modern World was published.Charles Phineas Sherman, Roman Civilization in the Modern World (1942). Available online at https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89100081694&seq=21. It consists of lectures he gave in his College of William and Mary and National University courses on the subject. In 1945, when Sherman turned seventy-one, it seemed his career would be capped by an appointment to "a new professorial chair of Latin-American Commercial Law" at the Catholic University of America.Sherman, supra note 1 at 293 However, Sherman never assumed that position.None of the sources reporting his death notes a CUA position in his career. See, for example, William and Mary Law School, Newsletter, vol. 6, no. 1, p.6 (Sept. 1962) https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/newsletter/5/ Sherman did remarry in 1944, so perhaps that new development caused him not to take the CUA appointment. He retired from teaching in 1956Id. and died in 1962 at age 88 in Short Beach, Connecticut."Former Teacher Succumbs at 88,"Newport News (Va.) Daily Press, Sept. 1, 1962 at 15.
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