POTHIER, ROBERT-JOSEPH. — Jurist, born at Orléans on 9 January 1699, died there on 2 March 1772. Having completed his initial studies in his native city at a Jesuit college, he also attended the university courses there and soon became a magistrate (1720).
At the age of fifty he was called to teach law at the University of Orléans, succeeding one of the most learned professors and magistrates of the time, Prevost de la Jannès. His legal knowledge extended, with a wealth of investigations and commentaries, from Roman law to canon law and to the coutumier, which at that time in France was applied as a complement to and interpretation of the common law. The principal qualities of his writings are the simplicity and clarity of their exposition. For twelve years he worked on the drafting of a voluminous work on the Pandects (Pandectae Iustinianae in novum ordinem digestae, Paris 1748–52), with which he intended systematically to reorder the various fragments of each title of the Digest. His particular qualities as a jurist, however, are fully manifested in his treatment of various institutions of private law (Traité des obligations, Paris 1761; Traité sur différentes matières du droit civil, there 1773), through which he gave French legal doctrine a systematic direction. These works, widely disseminated and esteemed in the 18th century, exerted considerable influence on the compilation of the Napoleonic Code (1804); the principles of Roman law were kept in mind in its preparatory work through P.’s interpretations.
The most recent edition of his works is that edited by V. Bugnet, Oeuvres de P., annotées et mises en conciliation avec le Code, 11 vols., 2nd ed., Paris 1861–62.