ARTICLE: Interview with Tony Honoré by Ville Erkkilä and Jacob Giltaij (Forum Historiae Iuris)

(image source: All Souls)

Forum Historiae Iuris published an interview with Tony Honoré (emeritus Regius professor of civil law, All Souls (Oxford). Both the transcript and the audio-version are accessible.

First paragraph:

On May 28th 2014, an interview was held with A.M. (Tony) Honoré, emeritus Regius professor of Civil Law in All Souls College, Oxford. The main reason for having the interview is the fact that Honoré was a pupil of Fritz Pringsheim during his Oxford-years. Pringsheim, a German professor of Roman law, had fled to the United Kingdom due to his Jewish family background, and taught at Oxford for almost twenty years. Being a refugee scholar, Pringsheim is one of the subjects of the research program ´Reinventing the foundations of European legal culture 1934-1964´, to which both authors are attached. The aim of this research program, hosted by the University of Helsinki and made possible by a grant of the European Research Council ¹ , is to study the intellectual history of five key-figures in the twentieth-century development of Roman legal studies, and law as a science in general. Together, these five scholars may have been instrumental in formulating an idea of a common European past through the history of law and jurisprudence. The first set of scholars was exiled in the advent of the Second World War, forcing them to rethink and restate their theories to a new audience that lacked the Roman legal tradition as it had been present in Germany. Of this group, Fritz Pringsheim and Fritz Schulz (along with for instance Hermann Kantorowicz, David Daube and Ernst Levy) continued their scientific endeavors in the Anglo-Saxon academic world, whereas Paul Koschaker stayed in Germany, but was effectively ousted from office in Berlin. Helmut Coing also remained in Germany during this period, becoming a professor of Roman law in Frankfurt am Main in 1940 . Finally, Franz Wieacker, the fifth scholar and a pupil of Pringsheim, did not only remain in Germany during the Second World War, but could be seen as to a degree sympathizing with the Nazi Regime . The method we are employing is a combination of literature study, archival research as well as interviews with those having had first-hand experiences with the five scholars central to the project. In this article, the project wishes to present the interview as intact as possible, however with references to the sources wherever needed, and preceded by two brief biographies, one of Pringsheim and one of Honoré himself. Also, for reasons of legibility at points small emendations and corrections have been made: the full audio-file of the interview has however been made available to Forum Historiae Iuris .

 Full text here.