7. Laws—

The laws referred to in the phrases doctor of laws, bachelor of laws, etc. are the leges—the rules contained in the compilation of Roman law made by order of the Emperor Justinian in the sixth century, and studied at Bologna and elsewhere through-out the Middle Ages as the living law of Europe. LL.D. is the exact equivalent of D.C.L.; the doctor of laws is the doctor of civil law, the teacher of the laws of Rome. He once had a colleague almost as important as himself, namely the doctor of canon law, for the civil and the canon law were in the Middle Ages the two systems by which the world was governed.

It ought not to be necessary to remind lawyers—yet it may be done for safety's sake—that the doubled consonant in LL.B. is merely the sign of the plural, and that the two first letters are not independent initials. Yet I have known bachelors of laws who wrote themselves down L.L.B., and even a doctor of laws (honoris causa) whose serenity was unruffled by L.L.D.

It has been the evil and undeserved fate of the degree of doctor of laws to be used for purely honorary and decorative purposes—as a token of respect rather than as a genuine certificate of learning. Just as the degree of doctor of divinity is sometimes given honoris causa to men who know but little theology, so the degree of doctor of laws is often conferred for the same reason on men who know no law at all.