A Conference on the Ius Commune in Early Modern Europe

[ We have the following announcement.  DRE]

Rg 28

[We have the following announcement from our friends at the Max Planck Institute for European Legal History.  DRE]

Rechtsgeschichte - Legal History (Rg) issue 28 (2020) published

This year's edition of Rechtsgeschichte - Legal History. Journal of the Max Planck Institute for European Legal History was published recently in September and once again brings together outstanding research contributions on legal historical topics as well as a considerable number of reviews. Our sincere thanks go to the 57 authors who, despite the difficult conditions created by the Covid-19 pandemic, made it possible for us to deliver this year's issue on time.

Five research contributions on very different topics kick off the issue. Tamar Herzog explores the debates between Romanists and Germanists regarding the origins of European law, with a particular focus on Spanish legal historiography. Her study demonstrates what narratives of legal origins reveal about law as well as about national or European identities. Christoph Meyer's article is devoted to the epitomisation of Latin legal texts: a widespread technique that was significant not just in methodological and literary but also in normative-functional terms. Based on a plethora of primary sources and a detailed knowledge of the scholarly literature, Meyer offers a tour d'horizon of the often underrated method of epitomisation from late antiquity to the modern era. Thomas Pierson uses the substantial collection of so-called "service letters" (Dienstbriefe) of the city of Frankfurt am Main to trace the development of the contractual employment conditions of the city's employees from the late 14th to the early 19th century. His findings provide stimuli for both the legal and the social history of pre-industrial labor. Martin Schennach probes the little-known depths of Austrian constitutional law scholarship. Since the second half of the 18th century, the flourishing genre of Staatsrechtslehre developed that aimed at the construction of an "entire Austrian state" (österreichischer Gesamtstaat). Finally, Klaus Günther analyses the historical conditions, characteristics, and consequences of the democratic transformation of modern criminal law. This leads him to examine the basic values of social cohesion and the assumption of duties of care and respect (Fürsorge- und Respektpflichten) by the citizens of a state.

Seven focus articles then deal with the legal history of the financial markets, for the first time systematically examining the fundamental relationships between risk cultures, crisis experiences, and developmental dynamics of (the knowledge of) law. The editors of this section, Carsten Fischer and Andreas Thier, introduce the topic. Jan Schröder provides the foreword to the second focus section, which is dedicated to the memory of Knut Wolfgang Nörr, who died in 2018. Three contributions pay tribute to both the personality and the oeuvre of Nörr, who for many years maintained a close association with the MPIeR as an External Scientific Member.

More than three dozen reviews deal with publications of relevance to legal history and published within the last two years. As in previous issues of the Rg, many reviews are written in a language other than that of the publication itself. The reviewed works' contents range chronologically from antiquity to the present, and geographically from the coasts of Chile and the highlands of Mexico to northern European regions and on to Tanzania, Indochina and the empire of Genghis Khan.

Finally, the theme of the finance is also taken up by Juliane Voß-Wiegand, who provides an introduction to the numismatic collection of the Deutsche Bundesbank. She is not only the author of this issue's marginalia on the historical monetary symbols preserved there, but also curated the impressive series of images that illustrates this year's print edition of the Rg.

Rechtsgeschichte - Legal History 28 is as always available in print from the publisher Vittorio Klostermann and online in Open Access via the journal's website.

Comparative Constitutiional History: Collected Essays

Published this summer by Brill: Comparative Constitutional History: Volume One: Principles, Developments, Challenges, edited by Francesco Biagi, Justin O. Frosini, and Jason Mazzone:

While comparative constitutional law is a well-established field, less attention has been paid so far to the comparative dimension of constitutional history. The present volume, edited by Francesco Biagi, Justin O. Frosini and Jason Mazzone, aims to address this shortcoming by bringing focus to comparative constitutional history, which holds considerable promise for engaging and innovative work along several key avenues of inquiry. The essays contained in this volume focus on the origins and design of constitutional governments and the sources that have impacted the ways in which constitutional systems began and developed, the evolution of the principle of separation of powers among branches of government, as well as the origins, role and function of constitutional and supreme courts.

TOC after the jump

--Dan Ernst

Princeton Conference on Law and Legality in Modern Eastern Europe

We have the following announcement, about an upcoming conference at Princeton University:

Law and Legality in Modern Eastern Europe
Princeton University
Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies
October 4-5, 2019

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 4

1:15 p.m. Welcome and Introductions
Emily Greble (Vanderbilt University)
Iryna Vushko (Princeton University)

1:30 p.m. - 3:15 p.m. Politics of Punishment in the Habsburg and
Russian Empires

Chair: Emily Greble
Commentator: Ekaterina Pravilova (Princeton University)

Alison Frank (Harvard University), “The Emperor and the
Executioner: Justice, Mercy, and Capital Punishment in
the Habsburg Monarchy”

Iryna Vushko (Princeton University), “Imperial Golgotha:
Spielberg Prison in the Habsburg Empire”

Daniel Beer (Royal Holloway), “Rituals of Civil Death:
Sovereignty and Subversion in the Reign of Alexander II”

3:15 p.m. - 3:30 p.m. Coffee Break

3:30 p.m. - 5:30 p.m. Overlapping and Contested Sovereignties

Chair: Iryna Vushko

Commentator: Lauren Benton (Vanderbilt University)

Natasha Wheatley (Princeton University), “Sovereignty as
a Knowledge Problem”

Aimee Genell (Western Georgia University), “From the
Legalist Empire to the Sovereign State”

Emily Greble (Vanderbilt University), “Debating Concepts
of Sovereignty: Muslims in Post-Ottoman Europe”

Dominique Reill (University of Miami), “Eeeny, Meeny,
Miny, Law: Law-Making and Self-Determination in
Absence of a State”

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 5

9 a.m. - 10:45 a.m. International Law and Regional Implications

Chair: Emily Greble  

Commentator: Eric Weitz (The City College of New York and the Graduate Center, CUNY)

Peter Holquist (University of Pennsylvania), “Testing the
New ‘Laws of War’: Imperial Russia and the 1877-78
Russo-Turkish War”

Jared Manasek (Pace University), “Occupation, Sovereignty,
and the Presumption of Legality: the “Forgotten” Ottoman Exclave of Ada Kale in the Danube International Waterway”

Kent Schull (State University of New York, Binghamton),
“Repatriating POWs in Post-Great War Eastern Europe:
Negotiating Citizenship & Belonging in the Wake of
Dismantled Empires, New Nation States & Imperial
Ambitions”

10:45 a.m. - 11 a.m. Coffee Break

11 a.m. - 12:45 p.m. The Transformation of the East European Legal Order in the 20th Century

Chair: Iryna Vushko 

Commentator: Benjamin Nathans (University of Pennsylvania)

Gábor Egry (Institute of Political History, Budapest), “The
Law of the State, the State of the Nation: the Idea of the
Nation and the Transformation of Legal Categories in
Interwar Eastern Europe”

Melissa Feinberg (Rutgers University), “The Dilemmas of
De-Austrianization: Family and Marriage Law in the First
Czechoslovak Republic”

Rebecca Reich (Cambridge University), “Journalism and
Judgment in the Post-Stalin Period”

 -- Karen Tani

Glossae issue 15

Vol.15 (2018) of Glossae: European Journal of Legal History features work on comparative legal history. Here's the line-up for the "Studies" section of the issue:

• Luisa Brunori, Aniceto Masferrer, Alain Wijffels, "Preface"
• Emanuele Conte, "Modena 1182, the origins of a new paradigm of ownership. The interface between historical contingency and the scholarly invention of legal categories"
• Yves Mausen, "Causa and opinion evidence: the Roman-canonical origins of the prohibition of opinion evidence in the common law"
• Anja Amend-Traut, "Diversité ou unité? Culture juridique, correspondances et différences dans la recherche de la justice en Europe"
• Mia Korpiola, "Particularisme juridique et développements communs (Moyen-Âge–Temps modernes): Une perspective suédoise"
• Luisa Brunori, "History of business law: a European history?"
• Wolfgang Ernst, "Modalités de vote dans les tribunaux collégiaux. La diffusion des idées des Lumières en Europe au 19ème siècle"
• Aniceto Masferrer, "Was the French Civil Code ‘the Model’ of the Spanish One? An Approach to the Uniqueness of the Spanish Civil Code"
• Luigi Lacchè, "Crossing boundaries. Comparative constitutional history as a space of communication"
• John Bell, "The Role of Doctrinal Writing in Creating Administrative Law: France and England Compared"
• Alain Wijffels, "Fingerposts and Armsäulen:Comparative legal history’s manifold itineraries to legal culture"

Further information is available here.

Moréteau, Masferrer, Modéer and friends on comparative legal history

Out with Edward Elgar is Comparative Legal History, edited by Olivier Moréteau (Louisiana State University), Aniceto Masferrer (University of Valencia), and Kjell A. Modéer (University of Lund). From the press: 

Is comparative legal history an emerging discipline or a much-needed dialogue between two academic subjects? This research handbook presents the field in a uniquely holistic way, and illustrates how comparative law and legal history are inextricably related.

Cementing a solid theoretical grounding for the discipline, legal historians and comparatists place this subject at the forefront of legal science. Comprehensive in coverage, this handbook collates theory and method for comparative legal history, as well as discussing international legal sources and judicial and civil institutions. Particular attention is paid to custom and codification, contracts, civil procedure and ownership. By assessing the evolution of law across European, Asian, African and American environments from the pre-modern era to the nineteenth century, the chapters provide stimulating and enlightening cases of legal history through a comparative lens.

A centrepiece for this field of scholarship, this research handbook will be an essential resource for scholars interested in comparative law, legal theory and legal history, from both legal and social science backgrounds.

Contents after the jump: