Biography

Jurist, Professor of Roman Law and "Prince of Asturias Award for Social Sciences" winner. He graduated in Law from the University of Salamanca at the age of seventeen, beginning as a professor of Roman Law one year later. In 1940 he moved to Madrid, where he obtained his doctorate at the university. In 1942 he obtained the chair of Roman Law at the University of Oviedo, subsequently holding it at the Universities of Salamanca (1943-1948) and Barcelona (1948-1953), finally moving to Madrid, where he carried out his teaching duties at the Complutense University until his retirement in 1985. He was also a professor at the Pontifical University of Comillas (ICADE) and at Colegio Universitario San Pablo-CEU of Madrid.

Author of a significant number of works in the field of Roman Law and legal thought, his book Derecho romano. Historia e Instituciones de Derecho privado (1st ed., Barcelona 1950; 15th ed., 2004) stands out, through which numerous generations of Spanish and Latin American students have been trained. Aware of the importance of "discovering" the spirit of Rome and "the Roman", he published in 1980 the book Espíritu del Derecho romano, a text that brings together his inaugural speech that year at the Spanish Real Academia de Jurisprudencia y Legislación. Under the title Miniaturas histórico-jurídicas (1992), Professor Iglesias gathered a wide selection of various thoughts related to Law, justice, law, politics, as well as others on the History of Rome and Roman Law that constitute, in a condensed synthesis, a series of mature and definitive reflections from his extensive intellectual discourse. Member of the Academia di Scienze Morali e Politiche di Napoli (Academy of Moral and Political Sciences of Naples) (1980), he received the Premio Castilla y León de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades (2000) and the Premio Príncipe de Asturias de Ciencias Sociales (2001).