The Edinburgh Law School’s Centre for Legal History will host a talk with Xavier Prévost, Professor of Legal History at the University of Bordeaux, on 10 May. Professor Prévost will lecture on "The Encyclopedism of Renaissance Humanist Jurists." Register here.
The expression “Legal humanism of the Renaissance” refers to the movement that emerged from the full integration of law into humanist knowledge, which began at the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries. Starting with a critique of medieval scholasticism for the study of legal texts, this intellectual movement proposed new methods for producing legal ideas based on an encyclopedic approach. Although there were many methodological differences between the legal scholars grouped under the banner of humanism, they shared the conception of a legal science that is not closed in on itself. Thus, they applied to law the humanist idea that knowledge forms a vast body made up of elements that may be intellectually differentiated, but which remain interrelated: the understanding of one of these elements must therefore logically call upon all those related to it. Not only did these scholars master the legal sources (Roman law, canon law, customs, royal legislation, court decisions, etc.), but they constantly referred to history and geography, philosophy and theology, philology and rhetoric, literature and poetry, mathematics and architecture, agronomy and astronomy.
The encyclopedism of Renaissance humanist jurists then caused an upheaval in the understanding of law, while participating massively in the production of knowledge beyond legal ideas. Presenting such an approach can contribute to the current debate which, faced with the extreme compartmentalisation of disciplines and even a growing separation between legal branches, is calling for greater use of interdisciplinarity.
--Dan Ernst. (H/t: Scottish Legal News.)
