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29 April 2015

CONFERENCE: the 69th session de la Société Internationale Fernand de Visscher pour l’Histoire des Droits de l’Antiquité (SIHDA) (Istanbul, 7-12 September 2015)



WHAT  the 69th session de la Société Internationale Fernand de Visscher pour l’Histoire des Droits de l’Antiquité (SIHDA), Legal education in Antiquity and Law of Antiquity in Today's legal curricola, Conference

WHEN September 2015, 7-12

WHERE MEF University, Istanbul, Turkey
all information here

The conference will be held at MEF University in Maslak. The University is within walking distance of the ITU Ayazaga station on the M2 Metro Line (passing from Taksim).
On Monday, September 7, registration and welcome cocktail will take place at the University between 16.00-18.00. On Tuesday, September 8, following the opening conferences in the morning, conferences in parallel sessions will begin. The theme of
the opening conferences will be "Legal Education in Antiquity and Law ofAntiquity in Today's Legal Curricula". The conference will end on Friday September Il with the general assembly in the afternoon and the gala dinner in the evening. The opening conferences and general assembly will take place at another campus of MEF University. We will give more detailed information regarding shuttles and transportation in August.

Online Registration

Online registration for participants (including accompanying persons) and speakers, submission of the abstracts, and choice of excursions should be made through "www.sihdaistanbu12015.com" until June 20th. Speakers should fill in both the participant and speaker registration forms.
We would like to remind you that French is the official language of SIHDA but papers may also be presented in English, German, Italian, or Spanish. The speakers are kindly requested to mention the language they will speak while submitting the abstract.

28 April 2015

BOOK: Richard HELMHOLZ, Natural Law in Court (Harvard UP, 2015, May 2015), 288 p. ISBN 9780674504585, € 40,50

(image source: Harvard UP)

Prof. dr. dr. h.c. Richard Helmholz (Chicago), member of this Society's Board of Advisors since 2011, publishes a new work over at Harvard University Press, next month.

Abstract:
The theory of natural law grounds human laws in the universal truths of God’s creation. Until very recently, lawyers in the Western tradition studied natural law as part of their training, and the task of the judicial system was to put its tenets into concrete form, building an edifice of positive law on natural law’s foundations. Although much has been written about natural law in theory, surprisingly little has been said about how it has shaped legal practice. Natural Law in Court asks how lawyers and judges made and interpreted natural law arguments in England, Europe, and the United States, from the beginning of the sixteenth century to the American Civil War.

R. H. Helmholz sees a remarkable consistency in how English, Continental, and early American jurisprudence understood and applied natural law in cases ranging from family law and inheritance to criminal and commercial law. Despite differences in their judicial systems, natural law was treated across the board as the source of positive law, not its rival. The idea that no person should be condemned without a day in court, or that penalties should be proportional to the crime committed, or that self-preservation confers the right to protect oneself against attacks are valuable legal rules that originate in natural law. From a historical perspective, Helmholz concludes, natural law has advanced the cause of justice.
Table of contents:
Introduction
1. Legal Education in Continental Europe
2. The Law of Nature in European Courts
3. Legal Education in England
4. The Law of Nature in English Courts
5. Legal Education in the United States
6. The Law of Nature in American Courts
Conclusion
(source: Legal History Blog)

24 April 2015

BOOK: Benjamin STRAUMANN, Roman Law in the State of Nature. The Classical Foundations of Hugo Grotius' Natural Law [Ideas in Context] (Cambridge: CUP, 2015), 283 p. ISBN 9781107092907, £ 65

(image source: cambridge.org)


Benjamin Straumann (NYU) published a new work on roman law and early modern law of nature at Cambridge University Press.

Abstract:
Roman Law in the State of Nature offers a new interpretation of the foundations of Hugo Grotius' natural law theory. Surveying the significance of texts from classical antiquity, Benjamin Straumann argues that certain classical texts, namely Roman law and a specifically Ciceronian brand of Stoicism, were particularly influential for Grotius in the construction of his theory of natural law. The book asserts that Grotius, a humanist steeped in Roman law, had many reasons to employ Roman tradition and explains how Cicero's ethics and Roman law – secular and offering a doctrine of the freedom of the high seas – were ideally suited to provide the rules for Grotius' state of nature. This fascinating new study offers historians, classicists and political theorists a fresh account of the historical background of the development of natural rights, natural law and of international legal norms as they emerged in seventeenth-century early modern Europe.
Table of Contents:
Introduction
1. Natural law in historical context
2. A novel doctrine of the sources of law: nature and the classics
3. Proving natural law: the influence of classical rhetoric on Grotius' method
4. Social instinct or self-preservation?
5. Justice for the state of nature: from Aristotle to the Corpus Iuris
6. Grotius' concept of the state of nature
7. Natural rights: Roman remedies in the state of nature
8. Natural rights and just wars
9. Enforcing natural law: the right to punish
Epilogue
Bibliography
Index.
 Free marketing excerpt here.

22 April 2015

COLLOQUIUM: "Critique sociale et critique sociologique du droit en Europe et aux Etats-Unis: le "Moment 1900" (Paris 29-30 May 2015)


WHAT Critique sociale et critique sociologique du droit en Europe et aux Etats-Unis: le "Moment 1900", colloquium

WHEN 29-30 May 2015

WHERE Paris, Université Paris 2 - Panthéon-Assas, Centre de Droit public comparé (CDPC EA n°7320)
all information here
Présentation
«Autour de 1900, la 'méthode juridique' a fait l'objet de vives controverses dans le monde occidental. De nombreuses approches critiques du droit ont dénoncé la cécité du formalisme juridique à l'égard des réalités individuelles et sociales. Elles furent entendues, elles ont changé nos méthodes de penser le droit et, aujourd'hui encore, elles interrogent nos théories et nos pratiques, nos doctrines et nos jurisprudences».

BOOK: "L’État du droit administratif" byJacques Caillosse


L’État du droit administratif, byJacques Caillosse 

Paris, LGDJ (Droit et société, t. 56), 2015, 346 p.

all information here

Présentation éditeur
Il est ici question de l’État du droit administratif, parce que la matière juridique de ce droit trouve dans l’État sa raison d’être.
L’État n’est-il pas origine et finalité d’un droit administratif tout entier tendu vers ces objectifs d’intérêt général hors desquels l’action publique serait sans justifications ?
Avec le droit administratif, l’État dessine sa cartographie. Il y construit son histoire en donnant à ses choix leur expression juridique : jusqu'où serait-il pensable, sans ce travail d’écriture juridique ? Il s’agit de rechercher, depuis le droit administratif, les empreintes de cette entreprise.
S’il faut se garder de penser que l’État ne serait qu’une production du droit administratif, force est d’admettre que les réalisations de ce dernier appartiennent à l’histoire de l’État. Ainsi sont ici entendus les « récits » du droit administratif : avec eux l’État se rend plus intelligible. On y trouve les traces de sa continuité par-delà ses transformations.
Le droit administratif participe des mutations d’un État voué à changer ses façons d’être et d’agir. Qu’il s’agisse pour lui de questionner ses performances, de repenser ses rapports avec le(s) territoire(s), ou encore de chambouler le modèle de contrôle de l’administration.
Ce programme exige que soient sollicités avec la même attention les figures centrales du droit administratif – service public, puissance publique, justice administrative – et tout un outillage juridique dont l’usage semble éloigné des dispositifs grâce auxquels l’État se reproduit : de la création du déféré préfectoral, à l’expérimentation de formes nouvelles de démocratie locale, en passant par le traitement non juridictionnel des conflits internes à l’administration. Si l’analyse de l’État du droit administratif est inconcevable hors des élaborations politiques de ce droit, elle n’est crédible qu’à la condition qu’en soient reconnus et décrits les supports techniques. L’État se fabrique jusque dans les « détails » du droit administratif.

BOOK: "L'imaginaire de la Commune", by Kristin Ross



L'imaginaire de la Commune, by Kristin Ross

all information here

Présentation éditeur
William Morris, Élisée Reclus, Pierre Kropotkine : ce ne sont pas les premiers noms qui viennent à l’esprit s’agissant de la Commune de Paris. S’ils tiennent dans ce livre un rôle important, c’est que pour Kristin Ross, la Commune déborde l’espace-temps qui lui est habituellement attribué, les 72 jours écoulés et les fortifications sur lesquelles elle a combattu. L’Imaginaire signifie que cet événement révolutionnaire n’est pas seulement international mais qu’il s’étend bien au-delà du domaine de la politique, vers l’art, la littérature, l’éducation, la relation au travail. Ce n’est pas un hasard si les trois personnages principaux du livre sont un poète-artiste, un géographe et un scientifique-anarchiste russe: la Commune n’est pas un simple épisode de la grande fable républicaine, c’est un monde nouveau qui s’invente pendant ces brèves semaines, un monde qui n’a pas fini de hanter les uns et d’inspirer les autres.

Auteure
  • Kristin Ross est professeur de littérature comparée à la New York University. Ses livres publiés en français: Mai 68 et ses vies ultérieures (Complexe, 2005) et Rouler plus vite, laver plus blanc (Flammarion, 2006). A paraître prochainement:Rimbaud et la Commune (Textuel).

BOOK: "Mentir à Rome:"mentiri" ou "mendacium dicere"? L'inhospitalité des sources juridiques" by Patrick Vassart



Mentir à Rome: "mentiri" ou "mendacium dicere"? L'inhospitalité des sources juridiques" by Patrick Vassart

all information here

Présentation éditeur
Pourquoi la prohibition du mensonge résulte-t-elle d’une norme éthique et sociale qui ne fait l’objet que d’un nombre restreint de transpositions? Peut-on retrouver l’origine de ce paradoxe à la lumière des sources romaines du droit contemporain?

  • Patrick Vassart: Docteur en Sciences juridiques, chargé de cours à l’Université de Mons, maître de conférences à l’Université Libre de Bruxelles, avocat au barreau de Bruxelles.

BOOK: "Manuel de droit romain" by Patrick Vassart


Manuel de droit romain, by Patrick Vassart

Bruylant, 2015, 424 p.

all information here

Présentation éditeur
Ce Manuel se propose d'initier des étudiants en droit aux notions remémorées de la jeunesse de notre droit: le Droit romain, en particulier les normes dont il a irrigué le droit privé depuis plus de vingt-cinq siècles. Avec un seul parti-pris de méthode: envisager la découverte comme une promenade de prospection archéologique à travers le fécond champ gallo-romain du Code civil.

Auteur
  • Patrick Vassart: Docteur en Sciences juridiques, chargé de cours à l’Université de Mons, maître de conférences à l’Université Libre de Bruxelles, avocat au barreau de Bruxelles.

BOOK: "Richelieu et l'écriture du pouvoir. Autour de la journée des Dupes" by Christian Jouhaud


Richelieu et l'écriture du pouvoir. Autour de la journée des Dupes, by Christian Jouhaud

Paris, Gallimard (L'Esprit de la cité), 2015, 352 p.

All information here

Présentation éditeur
On a beaucoup écrit sur la journée des Dupes, souvent la même chose : un jour Richelieu est congédié, le lendemain il triomphe, élimine ses ennemis et poursuit son éclatante carrière au cœur des rouages du pouvoir monarchique. Mais cet épisode ne se réduit pas à la narration qui prétend le restituer. Il s'insère dans une suite d'événements, qui le produit et lui donne sens. 
Christian Jouhaud reconstitue cette crise politique dans sa longue durée. Il en retrouve les protagonistes célèbres ou moins connus, scrute les décors et les lieux, met au jour les enjeux visibles, les passions dissimulées, les non-dits et les arrière-pensées. Défilent ainsi sous un éclairage parfois surprenant les figures attendues de Louis XIII, roi de cérémonie et de violence, de la reine mère, d'un Richelieu tacticien de sa propre histoire autant que de la puissance de l'État ; mais encore les vaincus de la crise, un Marillac, un Bassompierre, qui en portent témoignage du fond de leur défaite. 
L'histoire du pouvoir politique n'a de meilleure voie d'accès que de disséquer l'Événement, comme dans une autopsie, pour en explorer les ramifications et les replis. Mais cette histoire n'est intelligible que dans les traces écrites qui disent les actions du pouvoir et dans le travail d'écriture conçu par le pouvoir pour s'inscrire dans le temps.


DEBATE: "Il ruolo delle Costituzioni tra storia e diritto" (Rome, 23 April 2015)


WHAT Il ruolo delle Costituzioni tra storia e diritto, debate within the project I confini del diritto

WHEN 23 April 2015, 17:30

WHERE Università la Sapienza, Law Faculty, piazzale Aldo Moro, Rome

All information here
speakers

Maria Rosaria Ferrarese
Luigi Lacchè
Gunther Teubner

Le costituzioni negli ultimi duecento anni sono state il prodotto più “alto” di quelle formazioni sociali chiamate Stati. Abbandonato l’universalismo che si propugnava alle origini del costituzionalismo moderno, la dimensione statale ha rappresentato il perimetro entro cui si sono pensate e, poi, fatte valere le garanzie dei diritti costituzionali. La concreta macchina costituzionale entra in gioco, da un lato, per assorbire il potere costituente, potere “terribile”, posto alla base dell’ordinamento ma sempre eccedente i suoi confini istituzionali; dall’altro, per sostituire alla processualità aperta dal momento costituente uno stabile quadro di tutele e di garanzie. Guardando al presente, si potrebbe ipotizzare che i processi di globalizzazione abbiano ormai privato le costituzioni del loro presupposto: lo Stato. Nei tempi recenti prevalgono, in effetti, i discorsi sul dominio, non più delle costituzioni intese come “leggi supreme”, bensì dei mercati globali, dei gruppi sociali diffusi entro l’intero pianeta. In molti si dedicano alla ricerca di una nuova dimensione − non più statale, ma sociale − delle costituzioni. A essere messa in discussione non è una delle particolari declinazioni del concetto moderno di costituzione − intesa, alternativamente, come grande decisione, complesso di principi e valori sovraordinati o norma fondamentale − ma la costituzione sans phrase. Tuttavia, una costituzione senza Stato, forse anche senza politica, rimessa esclusivamente alle determinazioni della società nei suoi diversi segmenti (s’è parlato di costituzioni settoriali) quale ruolo svolge? Può porsi ancora come limite ai poteri e garanzia dei diritti ovvero si deve limitare a descrivere le emergenze spontanee dei diversi segmenti che vanno a comporre le nostre società globali?

21 April 2015

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS: The Theory of Just War. Behind the Jurisprudential Defense of (Abstaining From) Military Action (Warsaw, 13-14 October 2015); DEADLINE 15 MAY 2015


 (image source: saevientibus2015)

The Departments of Ethics, History of Philosophy and Law and Administration, as well as the International Centre for Intercultural and Interreligious Dialogue at the Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński and Łazarski Universities (Warsaw) host a conference on 13-14 October 2015 on the eternal interdisciplinary topic of "Just Wars". More information:

On 5th July 1415 the participants of the Council of Constance – a historically pivotal gathering of the ruling and clerical elite of contemporary Europe – were provided with the first of a series of legal writings concerning a momentous dispute between the Kingdom of Poland and the Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem (the Teutonic Knights). The case centered around the legitimacy of military attacks undertaken by the State of the Teutonic Order on the region of Samogitia (northwestern part of today’s Lithuania), whose inhabitants were the last ethnic group in Europe to resist conversion to Christianity. Arguing for the Polish side was Paul Vladimiri (Paweł Włodkowic), rector of the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, who, following the most prominent theological and legal thinkers of the time, defended the rights of pagans to have their own states, safe from the attacks of Christians, provided they themselves refrained from attacking their Christian neighbours. Based on the idea of mutual tolerance and peaceful coexistence between different political communities, Paul Vladimiri’s argumentation has gone down in history as one of the prototype versions of the theory of just war. 600 years after its original presentation, some fundamental issues raised during the medieval dispute are still of utmost urgency:

What type of rationale legitimizes the use of force against an autonomous political community?

What are the preconditions of a morally/legally justified military intervention undertaken on the territory of an independent state?

Which international institution possesses the entitlement to authorize the enforcement of universally recognized standards of execution of political power, e.g. respect for basic human rights?

Are there any moral/legal constraints on the membership in alliances aimed at eliminating specific threats to world peace?

To what extent are individual people responsible for the aggressive policy of (morally deplorable use of force by) their state leaders?

Answers to these and many other questions related to the idea of just war will be discussed during a conference held at Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University, Warsaw, Poland, on 13-14 October 2015. We are inviting proposals for paper presentations (up to 20 minutes long) that will contribute to the conference debate. Themes of presentations, accompanied by paper abstracts (maximum 300 words), should be submitted by May 31, 2015, via e-mail to saevientibus2015@uksw.edu.pl . PDF copies of Paul Vladimiri’s writings (the Latin original with its Polish and English translations) as well as the abstract submission form are available on the conference web page: www.saevientibus2015.pl. Selected presenters will be contacted via e-mail by June 15, 2015 and required to register. Accepted papers will be considered for publication in an edited volume on the conference theme.

Registration procedure must be completed by September 15, 2015 by paying the conference fee of 100 EURO (or 115 USD; for details, see the Practical Information tab)

The conference fee does not cover accommodation. The organizers may assist participants in making hotel reservations (selected options are presented in the Practical Information tab of the conference web page).

CONFERENCE/BOOK LAUNCH: Standen en Landen/Anciens Pays et Assemblées d'États (Brussels, 18 May 2015)


Standen en Landen /Anciens Pays et Assemblées d'États, the Belgian Section of the International Committee for the History of Parliamentary and Representative Institutions, launches the 110th volume of its collection on Monday 18 May 2015 in the Chamber of Representatives.

After presentation of a work on 20th Century Belgian parliamentary and party politics (Dr. Frederik Verleden (KUL),Vertegenwoordigers van Natie‘ in partijdienst. De verhouding tussen de Belgische politieke partijen in hun parlementsleden (1918-1970), Kortrijk:INNI publishers, 2015), prof. Olivier Christin (Neuchâtel/EPHE), author of Vox Populi. Une Histoire du vote avant le suffrage universel (Paris: Seuil, 2014, see earlier on this blog) will deliver a keynote lecture on Old Regime voting systems.

Those wishing to attend the event, from 14:00 to 16:00, should notify their presence on standenenlanden@gmail.com.

(source: standenenlanden.wordpress.com)

17 April 2015

JOURNAL: Merchant Morality in the 18th Century Mediterranean (Rives 2014, nr. 49)

(image source: revues.org)

The journal Rives méditerranéennes published a theme issue on "merchant morality in the 18th Century Mediterranean".

Summary:
Par l’existence d’une densité et d’une variété institutionnelles et par la prégnance du commerce sur l’économie, l’espace méditerranéen du long XVIIIe siècle peut être perçu comme un laboratoire pertinent pour travailler la thématique des moralités marchandes. Ce numéro se penche sur la question au croisement de quatre niveaux d’analyse : les trajectoires et les caractéristiques personnelles des négociants, avec leurs stratégies d’autoreprésentations ; les encastrements politiques, culturels et sociaux qui façonnent les groupes marchands (l’État, la paroisse, la « nation », la ville, la religion…) ; les institutions productrices de normes et de comportements normés (l’État, mais aussi les tribunaux de commerce, les assemblées de marchands…) ; et les pratiques qui mettent les éthiques, les lois et les discours à l’épreuve du terrain.

Table of contents (source: revues.org)

JOURNAL: Uses of the Law (Review of Nineteenth Century History 2014, Nr. 48)

(image source: revues.org)


The Revue d'histoire du dix-neuvième siècle published an interesting theme issue on the uses of law in 19th century Europe.

Table of contents (source: revues.org):


15 April 2015

JOB: Two Postdocs at the MPI for European Legal History/Goethe University Frankfurt, 'Knowledge of the Pragmatici, late 16th, early 18th Century'; DEADLINE 15 MAY 2015

(image source: MPI Frankfurt)

The MPI for European Legal History in Frankfurt advertises two postdoc positions on early modern legal history.

Project presentation:
By the third decade of the sixteenth-century, once the first settlements had been successfully established in the Caribbean as well as in Central and South America, the Spanish monarchy had to confront the task of establishing its dominion over huge populations and across vast distances, albeit with limited human and material resources. In light of the scarcity and the remoteness, great importance was accorded to propagating and implementing codes of conduct and modes of behavioural control – not just among European settlers, but also over the indigenous populations.
As a part of the Collaborative Research Centre (‘Sonderforschungsbereich’) 1095, which was approved in November 2014 and is slated to begin at the start of 2015 at Goethe University, Frankfurt, bearing the title “Discourses of Weakness and Resource Regimes”, this subproject draws on the broader historical context described above to ask what norms and mediatic forms had been put to service by the Spanish sovereign to regulate codes of conduct in the period spanning between the 16th and mid-17th century. This study centres predominantly on “normativity”, its conventional and mediatic sources, not least on “law” and the functionality of these normative orders. However, the core of this project draws less on conventional sources of legal history, meaning the large stacks of textual collections pertaining to the norm setting practices of higher authorities or other early modern legal sources from the Castilian tradition and ius commune. Instead, special attention is being paid to modalities of normativity and their special mediatic forms primarily established to reach out to “practitioners” – and, in particular, sources from the fields of moral theology, pastoral or catechetic literature. Research on private book collections and on book circulation shows that they predominantly included popular works, namely small compendia, summaries of greater moral theological works, and, in part, also juridical theses that were notably used in Hispanic America.
The project builds on the hypothesis that “pragmatic literature”, in particular, the strand that powerfully refers back to the tradition of moral theology, may have gained in significance and functionality in the remote frontier context of the early modern empire, lacking in any standard of review: particularly because this body of works did not represent complex instructions or a sophisticated normative framework, or even direct command of the authorities. What on the one hand was regarded as “weakness” could now also be viewed as “strength”: precisely its succinct and concise quality may have rendered this strand of pragmatic literature functional; instead of focusing on law and its enforcement, the works concentrate on the innate force of human conscience, inculcated by way of rituals and discourses. These texts were simultaneously “weak” and “strong”, not only because it was possible to tie them in with Christian traditions of a weak discourse. They were perceived as weak for the lack of theoretical complexity compared to the challenging scholarly tractates and, importantly, also because in general they could not be enforced like the rule of law. They were “strong”, on the other hand, in a pragmatic sense, as their flexible normative underpinnings enabled them to take up those notions of legitimacy and basic moral assumptions which became a part of the moral economy of the colonial society. Not least in the imperial peripheries, where the American territories were located at the beginning and where vast swaths of the Americas continued to remain even after different centres were established in the composite monarchy, these adaptable and pragmatic texts addressing codes of conduct, such as confessional writings, catechisms, moral theological instructions, became particularly important: even in places where the reach of law was limited or non-existent, the practice of specific regulations and notions of “proper” behaviour were effectively mediated through ecclesiastic institutions and players, but also through the omnipresent religious symbols and their consistent inculcation.   
There are some indications that this constellation of resources was responsible for generating, even minimally, normative conceptions of social order and thereby also establishing a system of rule: Juridical normativity and institutions consolidated in a process of differentiation, essentially resources central to the formation of the early modern European state, were substituted by religious normativity and pragmatic literature, which characteristically offered greater scope for interpretation. As a result, the situation that emerged could be construed as “weak” when compared to the European context. But set against the backdrop of the challenge of the colonial project – at the outset at least – it could be viewed as a functional normative order built on a distinct configuration of resources.  
If these hypotheses were confirmed, the project would also help to bring to light not just the practical significance and functionality of this strand of sources, which has received scant attention for a long time, but perhaps also its intellectual weight. It is possible that the perceived weaker nature of this literature does not merely suggest – as often assumed – a form of vulgarization; on the contrary, it may be possible to see herein a conscious, and considerable work of abstraction.

WORKSHOP: "Between slavery and freedom: aspects of manumission in the ancient world. The ancient Near East, Greece, and Rome" (Edinburgh, 1 May 2015)


WHAT Between slavery and freedom: aspects of manumission in the ancient world. The ancient Near East, Greece, and Rome, one-day Workshop

WHEN Friday 1 May 2015, 9:30 am - 6:00 pm 

WHERE Sydney Smith Lecture Theatre, doorway 1, Old Medical Quad, Teviot Place

all information here

Hosted by the School of History, Classics and Archaeology, this workshop will bring together scholars working on manumission and slavery in both the classical world (Greece and Rome), and the Near East to debate specific aspects of the manumission process and the lives of freed slaves.

Transition from slavery to freedom

Recent monographic work on ancient slavery has included a number of significant studies of manumission and freedmen. But despite these monographic treatments, it has become ever clearer that seminal aspects of the processes involved in slave manumission are understudied (including the workings and the place of peculium, the slave’s ability to amass possessions that enables him or her to purchase their freedom, the role played by the slave’s gender in the manumission process and prospects, etc.).
Moreover, the status of freed slaves remains subject to debate. In light of the prominence of evidence for manumission and the importance of status in ancient societies, the transition from slavery to freedom is central to our understanding of the peculiar institution in the ancient world.

Workshop programme

There will be three formal sessions: one on Rome, one on Greece, and one on Near Eastern slavery and manumission.
Each speaker is allocated one full hour for paper delivery and ensuing discussion, followed by a plenary discussion session at the end of the day chaired by the workshop organisers.


LECTURE: "Manumitting Slaves: Eighteenth-Century Scotland and Ancient Rome" (Edinburgh, 30 April 2015)


WHAT Manumitting Slaves: Eighteenth-Century Scotland and Ancient RomeThe 5th Slavery in World History lecture

WHEN Thursday 30 April 2015, 6:15 pm - 7:30 pm 

WHERE Teviot Lecture Theatre, doorway 5, Old Medical School, Teviot Place

all information here


Hosted by the School of History, Classics and Archaeology, this lecture will consider the manumission of slaves in eighteenth-century Scotland, delivered by Professor John W. Cairns from the University of Edinburgh Law School.

Manumitting Slaves: Eighteenth-Century Scotland and Ancient Rome

Manumission has played a complex social role in slave-owning societies. Unlike ancient Rome, eighteenth-century Scotland was not a slave-society; but it was certainly a society in which men, women and children were held as slaves.
This was the product of the energetic activity of Scots in the British Empire: most of the individuals held as slaves had been imported from the colonies. Slave-societies typically regulate manumission as part of a complex set of regulations of slavery and slave-ownership.
But the legal position of slaves in Scotland as ambiguous; legal practices imported from the colonies and often understood - at least by lawyers - through a lens of Roman law created social and perhaps even legal norms. These ambiguities created uncertainties about manumission and how to make it effective, to allow those freed to maintain their freedom and not be sold abroad.

Join us at our 'Slavery and freedom' workshop

Following this public lecture, there is a workshop on manumission in the ancient world, taking place on 1 May.
Full information on the workshop programme, as well as on how to register, can be found on our website.

Registration

This lecture is free but ticketed. Please visit our online booking system to register.

Further information

For further information on this workshop, please contact the organiser, Dr Ulrike Roth.