I just returned from Paris, where I presented in the École
de Droit of Sciences Po my most recent book on the history of European Law.
This was the fifth time, in which I presented this book, the previous
opportunities being the Law Faculty of the Universidade Nova of Lisbon, The
departmental seminar of the European University Institute (the graduate school
of the European Union), the joint PhD program of the University of Florence and
Siena, The Annual Meeting of the American Society for Legal History (hurray!),
and now Paris. As I flew back over the Ocean, I was thinking about how
different each of these experiences was.
In Lisbon, the session was mainly attended by law students.
The students – who obviously read the book— wanted to know how I situated
myself. They asked to which school of thought I belonged and how I
distinguished myself from other scholars. They also wanted to know how Portugal
would be inserted into my narrative. Did I not believe in the existence of
nations? (I do not). Did I not think that European law was different, even
superior, to law elsewhere? (I do not). The session at the European University
Institute was mostly attended by jurists and historians. Many of them are
involved in the construction of Europe through historical research but also
through legal work, and they mainly wanted to know why I identify my object of
study as “European Law” (for many Europeans this term designates the Law of the
European Union). They also asked how I chose what to concentrate upon (in terms
of subject matter but also geographical coverage), and what putting together
England and the Continent taught me. In the Joint PhD, students and faculty
were particularly interested to hear my views as to whether law was an
important element everywhere, always, and in all regards. Do historians need to
take it into account? In what ways? How can they? Participants in Italy also
asked how (and what) we can know about the legal past. Many of their questions
were directed at methodology: What can be learned from which type of sources and
how does one piece together into a coherent narrative the multiple fragments of
information that the archives contain. At the Annual Meeting, three
commentators discussed the book. Their comments were mostly directed at posing
questions about choice and selection. One of the commentators also discussed
how my work could be situated among the various schools engaged in doing
European legal history. In Paris, the public included both law professors and
political scientists. They were particularly interested in the “big picture:”
How law interacted with society and society with law, how European were the
developments I described, and whether law was fixed or contingent, enduring or
constantly changing. Listeners also wanted to hear more about how I selected what
to write about and why certain important features of European law were absent.
What was Europe came up several times, as did the question whether I intended
to reproduce existing narratives or question them. Is law something that exists
objectively or is it what jurists tell us it is, that is, a narrative that they,
the jurists, can (and often do) constantly change?
These differences can of course be fortuitous and depend on
the accidental group of people that happened to gather that very same day, but
my impression is that at least some of them had to do with distinct academic
traditions of reading and discussing, as well as with the preoccupations of
distinct listeners of distinct disciplines. I often tell students that no
reader is ever faithful to a book. I certainly am not. I read books with my own
questions in mind and looking for the information I most desire to find. As a
result –as often happens to me with films or fiction books I really like —I can
read the same book over and over again, each time seeing it differently or
getting other things from it. As Ruiz
Zafón, a Spanish novelist, once said, because books are labyrinths, we need to
find our own path in order to transit through them. And, as we do, we often
discover what we already possess. This voyage of discovery is ours, not the author's, and no author can ever control it.
