JOURNAL: Journal on European History of Law VI (2015), No. 2

 (image source: historyoflaw.eu)

The Journal on European History of Law (ISSN 2042-6402) published the second issue of its fifth volume.

Research articles:

• Diemut Majer, "Höchstgerichtsbarkeit in Deutschland im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert.Ein rechtshistorischer Rückblick (The Jurisdiction of the Constitutional Justice in Germanyin 19th and 20th Century. Legally-Historical View)"
• Christoph Schmetterer: "Die Kompetenz zur Regelung des Militärstrafverfahrens in Österreich(-Ungarn)
  (The Competency to Enact Rules for Military Criminal Procedure in Austria(-Hungary)"
• István Stipta: "Rituale Blutanklage in Ungarn im Jahre 1883 (Ritual blood libel in Hungary in 1883)"
• Zoltán J. Tóth, "Statutory Regulation of Capital Punishment in Hungary during the Horthy Era and World War II"
• Iván Halász: " The Institutional Framework and Methods of the Implementation of Soviet Legal Ideas in the Czechoslovakia and Hungary during Stalinism"
• Ádám Rixer: "General and Legal Meaning of Civil Society in Hungary from the Beginning till 1989"
• Anna Klimaszewka: " The Reception of the French Commercial Law on the Polish Lands in the First Half of the 19th Century"
• Pawel Kacprzak: " Rechtliche und organisatorische Grundlagen des Funktionierens  der Arbeitslager in Polen in den Jahren 1945 – 1950 (The Legal and Organizational  Principles of the Labor Camps in Poland 1945 – the 1950s.)"
• Karol Siemazsko: "Security of Post-German Movable Property in the First Years after the End  of World War II in the Light of Selected Cases Considered by the Regional Court  in Gorzów Wielkopolski"
• Kamil Niewiński: "Solidarity and the Judiciary in the Polish People’s Republic in the Years 1980 – 1981"
• Miriam Laclavíková, Adriana Švecová: "Attempts to Unify and Codify Private Law during  the Period of the Inter-war Czechoslovak Republic"
• Ján Štefanica: "Selected Aspects of the Creation and Development of the Rules  of International Law for the Prosecution of War Criminals"
• Dmitry Poldnikov: "Magna Carta: Disentangling History from Myth in Russia"
• Katrin Treska, Engjëll Likmeta: "The Funds for the Execution of Obligations (Contract) according to the Albanian Customary Law"
• Iván Siklósi: " Treasure Trove in Roman Law, in Legal History, and in Modern Legal Systems. A Brief Summary"
• Miklós Kelemen: "Veränderung der Beschaffenheit der „annona militaris“ in der späten Kaiserzeit 
  (The Meaning Changes of the Annona Militaris in the Later Roman Empire)"
• János Erdődy: " The Regula “nasciturus pro iam nato habetur” and the Appearance of the Expression “mulieris portio” in the Digest and its Consequences"
• Pál Sáry: "The Rules of Condemnation to the Mines in Imperial Rome"
• József Benke: " What Would ‘Praetor Paulus’ Do in ‘Post-Lehman’ World? A Comparative Analysis of Lawmakers’ Responses to the Spreading Practice of Fraudulent Transfers’  Novel Ruses in Late Roman Republic’s Liquidity Crisis and in 21st Century Hungarian ‘Post-Lehman’ Crunch: Some Morals of the ‘Paulian Action"
• Adolfo A. Diaz Bautista Cremades: "Notes about Sport Finance in Rome"
• Michael Conforti: "John Wilkes, the Wilkite Lawyers and Locke’s Appeal to Law"
• Jiří Bílý: " Marxism in the West Thought Interpretation of Law in Postwar Period"
• Jacek Zieliński: "Myth of the Truth in the Heterogeneous Society"

Book reviews:

• Fenyvesi Csaba: A kriminalisztika tendenciái. A bűnügyi nyomozás múltja, jelene, jövője Iole Fargnoli/Stefan Rebenich (Hrsg.): Theodor Mommsen und die Bedeutung des Römischen Rechts  [Tendencies in Criminalistics: The Past, Present and Future of Criminal Investigation].
• Martin Löhnig (Hrsg.): Zwischenzeit. Rechtsgeschichte der Besatzungsjahre Gerald Mund (Hrsg.): Deutschland und das Protektorat Böhmen und Mähren.  Aus den deutschen diplomatischen Akten von 1939 bis 1945
• Susanne Lösch: Die coniunctio in testamentarischen Verfügungen des klassischen römischen Rechts
• Anna Margarete Seelentag: Ius pontificium cum iure civili coniunctum. Das Recht der Arrogation in klassischer Zeit

The whole issue can be consulted in open acces here.

CONFERENCE: Law in the History of Capitalism (American Bar Foundation/University of Chicago Law School), DEADLINE 15 FEB 2016

(image source: University of Chicago Law School)

Summary:

In recent years, there has been an explosion of new scholarship on the historical relationship between law and capitalism.  This new literature has examined a variety of topics including the connection between slavery and capitalism, new social and cultural perspectives on economic and business histories, and the role of the state in facilitating and frustrating economic development.  This infusion of interdisciplinary scholarship creates an opportunity for new work that puts law, legal institutions, and legal processes at the center of capitalist transformations.

The aim of this conference is to provide junior scholars with a venue to share their unpublished research and to connect with senior scholars in the field.  We thus invite junior scholars to submit proposals that offer original analyses of law in the history of capitalism.  Our goal is to host a conference with a variety of papers that range chronologically, geographically, and across disciplines.  The conference will be held at the American Bar Foundation in Chicago, Illinois, from June 27-28, 2016. 

The “Law in the History of Capitalism” conference is co-sponsored by the American Bar Foundation, the American Society for Legal History, the University of Chicago Law School, the Indiana University Maurer School of Law, the University of Illinois College of Law, the University of Michigan Law School, the University of Minnesota Law School, and the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

Practical information:

Interested participants should submit a 300-word paper proposal and a cv of no more than 3 pages through the conference website.  Questions should be addressed to Erin Watt at ewatt@abfn.org.  All proposals are due by February 15, 2016.  Applicants will be notified by email no later than March 30, 2016, whether their proposals have been accepted.  No previously published work will be accepted, as the conference is designed to provide a forum for productive and supportive discussion of works in progress.
Accepted participants will be required to submit a full paper of no more than 10,000 words by May 15, 2016.  Papers will be pre-circulated on a password-protected website and read by all participants.  Modest travel and accommodations support will be provided for presenters.  For further information, see the conference website main page.

(source: Legal History Blog)

CONFERENCE: Capital, Credit and Profession in European Cities, 16th-19th Century (Paris Ouest La Défense/Nanterre); DEADLINE 29 Feb 2016

(French banker Samuel Bernard by Hyacinthe Rigaud, image source: internationalportraitgallery.blogspot.com)

Laurence Croq, Vincent Meyzie and Vincent Demont (Université Paris Ouest Nanterre - CHISCO) issued a call for papers on the following theme:

L’achat ou la vente d’une situation professionnelle (fonds de commerce, marques commerciales, offices etc.) est un goulot d’étranglement peu connu des sociétés de l’époque moderne. Dans tous les milieux où les acteurs projettent de s’intégrer, ces transactions sont soumises à des contraintes de natures différentes, économiques, sociales ou culturelles, et ce dans des proportions chaque fois variables. Ainsi dans la France du XVIIIe siècle, l’entrée dans le monde des offices est subordonnée à des contraintes économiques mais aussi sociales : l’acquisition d’un office est une opération financière qui peut être annulée par un refus de la compagnie de recevoir l’impétrant parmi les siens. Au contraire, la mercerie parisienne est ouverte aux candidats de toute origine pourvu qu’ils puissent payer le droit d’entrée dans le corps et soient suffisamment solvables pour convaincre un bailleur de leur louer (ou sous-louer) une boutique et un grossiste ou un manufacturier de leur vendre des marchandises. Ces deux exemples esquissent l’image de sociétés respectivement traditionnelles et modernes, mais ils coexistent au sein d’un même lieu en un même temps. Les cessions de fonds de commerce, d’office avec ou sans pratique, de pratiques sans office (les receveurs de rentes), de marques commerciales..., constituent, par les motivations individuelles et les normes ou contraintes collectives qui les entourent, des temps permettant une observation fine des possibilités de mobilité dans ou vers un groupe social. Supports de la domination sociale et/ou de l’activité professionnelle, ces biens économiques se caractérisent par une relative singularité, l’examen de leur circulation peut aussi prendre en compte des éventuelles dynamiques de construction de marchés. C’est dans cette double perspective que la journée prendra en compte les cessions ou achats caractérisés par des transferts de fonds réels ou fictifs, dans un cadre plus ou moins réglementé par un ordre, un corps de métier ou une autorité politique, en France et en Europe du XIVe au XIXe siècle.
Trois axes de réflexion sont proposés :
1° Le premier axe porte sur les contraintes politico-institutionnelles de la régulation professionnelle
Les transactions sont élaborées dans des cadres contraignants à différents niveaux, par exemple la clause des 40 jours pour les ventes d’offices royaux avant la paulette, la cession des privilèges pour les manufactures de quincaillerie à Nuremberg. La question des producteurs des normes sera envisagée car elles peuvent être un produit sui generis des corps, imposées par des autorités extérieures ou, éventuellement, négociées entre les deux. L’étude de l’articulation entre les procédures individuelles et les contraintes émanant des structures corporatives est particulièrement importante quand les corps sont puissants ou qu’ils entreprennent de discipliner leurs membres. Dans les corps et communautés de métiers comme dans le milieu des procureurs au parlement, la compétence peut être validée par un parcours de formation en un lieu donné (apprentissage puis salariat / stage) ou bien ne pas l’être : l’intégration « by redemption » en Angleterre ou par suffisance à Paris au XVIIIe siècle permet à des hommes aux expériences variées d’intégrer une filière professionnelle sans apprentissage. Au-delà des spécificités des cadres institutionnels (offices municipaux ou royaux relevant de la vénalité coutumière ou de la vénalité légale, structuration d’une partie des métiers en jurandes, privilèges économiques), cette rencontre cherche à identifier des points communs structurels et structurants.
2° Le deuxième axe met l’accent sur la dimension proprement économique des cessions (prix, transferts de fonds et garanties financières des transactions). [ ? + marché ?]
Les actes de cession sont des traités d’offices, des cessions de fonds de commerce, des ventes de cabinets. Ils permettent d’envisager à la fois d’envisager la formation du prix, les clauses de paiement et de garantir, les modalités de financement.  Qu’en est-il du prix de la transaction et des conditions de paiement ? Les paiements sont-ils garantis explicitement et si oui, comment (caution, hypothèques…) ? La pratique des pots-de-vin ou dessous de table accompagne t-elle les transactions, par exemple quand le prix de des offices de justice de cours souveraines a été fixé en 1665 ou bien quand l’acheteur est d’une condition inférieure au vendeur ? Les nouvelles procédures de diffusion des informations, telles les Annonces, affiches et avis divers diffusées dans de nombreuses villes françaises dans la seconde moitié du XVIIIe siècle, contribuent en effet à élargir le vivier d’acquéreurs potentiels en proposant des ventes d’offices et de fonds de commerce. La publicité faite autour de certaines transactions contraste avec le secret qui en entoure d’autres. La question des médiateurs éventuels, des notaires en particulier, sera posée.
3° Le troisième axe se concentre sur la dimension sociale des cessions, en particulier au sein des communautés professionnelles et des réseaux de parenté.
Certaines compagnies contrôlent étroitement les qualités sociales des candidats, les refus créent des précédents qui suscitent des pratiques d’autocensure. Le nouvel officier bénéficie aussi d’une lettre de provision d’office qui font éventuellement référence aux fonctions exercées par les parents du nouvel officier.[question du capital social] Dans le milieu marchand, l’identité sociale du nouveau commerçant est moins facilement identifiable, mais ceux qui doivent être explicitement cautionnés quand ils prennent à bail une boutique ou achètent des marchandises sont manifestement des hommes nouveaux. La question sera étudiée pour les entreprises avec clientèles ou non, dans des contextes où les acteurs appartiennent à une minorité religieuse ou non. Les sources judiciaires permettent par ailleurs d’envisager les cessions contestées et papiers de famille, les ego-documents peuvent préciser les motivations des vendeurs et des acquéreurs.

 Practical guidelines:

Les propositions de communication comprendront un résumé de 2500-400 signes et un court CV. Elles doivent être adressées à Vincent Meyzie (vincent.meyzie@orange.fr), Vincent Demont (vincent.demont@u-paris10.fr), et Laurence Croq (laurence.croq@orange.fr).
Date limite d’envoi des propositions : 29 février 2016.
Les organisateurs enverront une réponse à la fin du mois de mars.

Source: calenda.org.

BOOK PREVIEW: Wilfrid PREST (ed.), Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England (Oxford: Oxford UP, forthcoming)

(image source: Wikimedia Commons)

The Legal History blog signalled a free preview to Simon Stern (Toronto)'s introduction to Book II of Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England, to be published by Oxford University Press, under the editorship of Wilfrid Prest (Oxford).

Summary:

This draft excepts three of the six sections in the introduction to Book II, on the law of property ("Of the Rights of Things") in William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England. The volume forms part of the Oxford Edition of Blackstone, and is due out in 2016. The three sections excepted here cover the aims of Book II, its treatment of property (including intellectual property), and its influence. Blackstone is often praised in vague terms for his style, and the section on his influence also attempts to explain concretely some of the stylistic features that distinguish his writing. Besides an introduction, each volume in this edition includes the editorial changes that Blackstone made to successive editions of the Commentaries, explanatory footnotes, and tables of the cases, statutes, and legal texts that he cites. The introduction to each volume discusses the book’s aims, subject matter, publication, reception, sources, and influence.

The paper can be read here on SSRN.

(source: Legal History Blog)

CONFERENCE: The Prince, the Tyrant the Despot: Representations of the Sovereign in Europe, from Renaissance to Enlightenment (1500-1800) (22-23 Jan 2016)

(image source: http://hfriedberg.web.wesleyan.edu/)

Pluridisciplinary international conference organised by the CREA-EA370 (Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense) in partnership with PRISMES (La Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris 3), CAS (Toulouse Jean Jaurès), supported by CHISCO (Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense) and the SAGEF.

Summary:

In the 16th century, French as well as English kings intended to assert the weight of their authority in opposition to the imperial aspirations of the Pope and of Charles V of Spain. Then came the turn of the seven Northern provinces which claimed their independence from Philip II. The Republic of the United Provinces was born in 1581. In this context of fusion among territorial entities, a number of voices rose in defense of the legitimacy of a prince’s absolute power and established the notion of sovereignty. In the aftermath of the Saint Bartholomew Massacre in Paris, Jean Bodin defined this notion as “the Republic’s absolute and perpetual power”. His theses were translated into Latin and read all over the continent. Sovereignty thus came to designate the means used by the Republic to defend itself against external threats, but also against internal conflicts like peasant rebellions, aristocratic uprisings, succession wars or religious troubles.
Such efforts of theorization stemmed from the wish to give the prince’s authority a legal basis; for absolutists, it meant that the sovereign’s will was law. These transformations entailed a revision of the legal framework inherited from the Middle Ages, when the Justinian Corpus was rediscovered at the end of the 11th century in Italy. Revisiting a whole historiographical school incarnated by the German historian Ernst Kantorowicz, for whom the modern State emerged from Roman imperial law, some scholars have evidenced the vast enterprise to revise and adapt Roman law throughout the 16th c. Such was the contribution of the French lawyers of the School of Bourges as studied by the historians Allen, Salmon, Giesey and Kelley; at about the same time in England were published the works of Fortescue (1385-1479) who had compiled vernacular law. His work paved the way to that of the 17th c. lawyers, among whom Sir Edward Coke. The notion of sovereignty based on vernacular law was used in various countries as an ideological weapon against any threat of domination: in the Spanish Flanders, in the France of the Valois kings, in Stuart Scotland and England. Thus, from a historiographical perspective, one may see a turning point in the constitution of the legal apparatus of independent states in the modern age, or on the contrary, see a continuity with the late Middle Ages: in this case, the doctrinal efflorescence in the 16th and 17th c. can be viewed as the legacy of 13th and 14th c. struggles to emancipate citizens and worshippers from papal authority, illustrated by the quarrel between secular princes and the Papacy and the rising attraction of gallicanism and anglicanism.
And yet, it soon became clear that the tyrant lurked behind the sovereign: « Other do call that kinde of administration which the Greekes do call, pambasileian, not tyranny, but the absolute power of a King, which they would pretende that everie King hath, if he would use it. The other they call basileian nomikhn or the Royall power regulate by laws », Sir Thomas Smith, adviser to Queen Elizabeth I declared in De Republic Anglorum in 1583. One of the main issues raised by the establishment of centralized territorial monarchies was the possibility of controlling that power, as soon as there was a risk that it be used to force subjects to convert themselves to the monarch’s religion. How could a clear line be drawn between what Bodin calls a legitimate and just form of action and tyrannical will? Once the principle of obedience to civil authority is accepted, how to be sure that the subject does not again fall prey to the power of medieval lords or become the slave of some insane ruler? What are the effects of political serfdom for society as a whole? In the 16th c., the transmission of the royal Crown to English and Scottish princesses also raised new questions as to the incarnation of power in a female body: how could a woman represent the body of the people and exercise authority on their behalf? Later on, how did the figure of the enlightened despot emerge in Europe?
The monarchomachs gave paramount importance to the idea of imposing normative limits on the ruler and promoted the right to resist when the prince or princess failed to respect liberty of conscience or the fundamental laws of the realm. But the partisans of state sovereignty also took up as their own this notion of limitation, whether they viewed sovereignty as a historical construct (Bodin), or whether they adopted a contractualist perspective (Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau), or else an institutionalist perspective (Harrington, Spinoza, Montesquieu).
The development of the doctrine of sovereignty in Early Modern Europe seems to have generated a tension between the necessity of setting limits to the sovereign power and the difficulty to derive these limitations from civil law. Such a tension is expressed in Loyseau’s maxim: “Sans doute la souveraineté est-elle absolue, mais elle a des limites.” Hence the attempt to find the limit to sovereign power elsewhere, either in the treatises on the art of government (Machiavelli, Botero, Ammirato…) or in the theory of natural law and of the right to resist, contending that the ruler’s actions shall be measured by following the universal law of reason.
What does the modern tyrant look like? The terms of tyrant (tyrannos) and despot (despotes) were bequeathed by Ancient Greek and Roman historical and political thought, first to describe the Memnad dynasty, then to oppose the good king (basileus) and the bad king, whose government is characterized by excess (hubris). The term despotes was used for a divinity or a master who had authority over a group of men: from the 11th c. A.D., it was the title commonly used for the Byzantine Emperor. In the 13th c. Thomas Aquinas distinguished between the tyrant and the usurper. While subjects may rebel against the latter, they had no right to rebel against the former, who was legitimate and immune. Both terms have undergone change in their meaning and came to assume in the Renaissance, then in modern times, the pejorative sense given to them by Montesquieu. In his eyes, the main difference between a good and a despotic government did not lie in the ruler’s identity or in the nature of the regime – democracy, aristocracy, monarchy, but in the way the sovereign exercised power. In one case, this power would be checked by the laws of the State or Principality, in the other, the sovereign’s will – however altered and erratic – would know no limit and serve as law.
Modern minds have invested with modern features the figure of the bad prince, as the ethical and religious qualities which were previously expected from a ruler – is he pious, wise or just? – tended to give way to prudential considerations, like his ability to preserve religious concord or public prosperity, thus conferring on the notion of common good a more immediate dimension than the one which prevailed in scholastic thinking. The tyranny exerted on individuals could bear the mask of religious persecution or aristocratic domination. As patriarchal power served as an analogue for sovereign power (Filmer), the attempt to contain the latter sometimes went hand in hand with the critique of sex relations based on domination (Marinella, Tarabotti).
A typical tragic hero, the tyrant has been the object of innumerable works and depictions (songs, allegories, satirical images…) which serve as a counterpoint to official portraits of sovereigns in full state. In Shakespeare’s historical works he appears as a prince or a usurper caught in the trap of an endless mirror effect: « As Caesar loved me, I weep for him ; as he was fortunate, I rejoice at it ; as he was valiant, I honour him : but as he was ambitious, I slew him », Brutus declares. He is finally at the heart of monarchomach treatises whether Catholic (Mariana, Boucher) or Protestant (Buchanan, Languet, Bèze) and whose successors are Milton and Sidney. He is represented as a senile old man, a woman ensnared in her passions or a lunatic blinded by his will to rule. In their most radical recommendations, these thinkers call for tyrannicide.
Our aim will be to delve into a great variety of sources and testimonies in an effort to show how they reveal the changes in the figure of the Sovereign in the modern age. These changes will be analysed both in terms of broad developments and in their unresolved tensions, between the institution of a supreme authority grounded in popular legitimacy and capable of taking decisions binding the whole society and the creation of constitutional counterpoises to prevent the metamorphosis of sovereigns into tyrants. The field of studies will be European, and potentially cosmopolitical insofar as modern Western observers have established the figure of the Eastern despot as a counter model: it would therefore be of major importance to confront this vision with the representations of Persian, Chinese or Arabic speaking thinkers.

Programme for Friday, January 22:

22. Room B015 - Salle René Rémond, Espace Recherche, building B
Morning
9h15 Welcoming the participants.
9h30 Conference opening
9h45-11h00 The Prince and the Tyrant in Reformation Europe I

• Chair Christian LAZZERI (Université de Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense)

• Armel DUBOIS-NAYT (Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin) – Marie de Guise: femme prince ou “tyranne”?

• Teresa MALINOWSKI (Université de Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense) – L’expérience polonaise d’Henri III dans les écrits de la Ligue : un réquisitoire contre le Valois tyran.

Break
11h15-12h30 The Prince and the Tyrant in Reformation Europe II

• Chair Mark GREENGRASS (University of Sheffield)

• Mario TURCHETTI (Université de Fribourg) – La différence « capitale » entre despotisme et tyrannie : la leçon de Bodin indispensable encore de nos jours

• Nicolas DUBOS (Université Bordeaux Montaigne) – Portrait du Prince et histoire nationale dans le Henry VII de Francis Bacon

Déjeuner. Lunch
Afternoon.
14h00-15h45 Representing the Tyrant in Early Stuart England
Chair Anne-Marie MILLER BLAISE (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris 3)

• Christine SUKIC (Université de Reims Champagne Ardenne) – “We have made a God of our owne bloud”: Alexander the Great as Hero and Tyrant on the Early Modern Stage

• Gilles BERTHEAU (Université François Rabelais, Tours) – King James and “Pontificall Tyrannie”

• Jauffrey BERTHIER (Université Bordeaux Montaigne) – Common law et absolutisme dans l’Angleterre du début du XVIIe siècle. Le droit comme limite prudentielle du pouvoir

Break
16h00-17h45 Deconstructing and rethinking tyranny
Chair Myriam-Isabelle DUCROCQ (Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense)

• Raffaella SANTI (Università di Urbino Carlo Bo) – Unus Tyrannus? The Dissolution of Tyranny in Hobbes’s Leviathans

• Mary NYQUIST (University of Toronto) – Despotism No Tyranny in Hobbes

• Luc BOROT (Université Paul Valéry, Montpellier 3) – Tyrannies as privation(s) of government in Harrington’s System of Politics.

 Programme for Saturday 23 January:

Room : Salle des conférences, Espace Recherche, Building B
Morning
9h15 Welcoming the participants.
9h30-10h45 Portrait of the Tyrant as the enemy of liberty

• Chair Laïla GHERMANI (Université de Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense)

• Christopher HAMEL (Université de Rouen) – "’A single person...natural adversarie and oppressor of libertie’. La réduction de la monarchie à la tyrannie dans les pamphlets politiques de John Milton"

• Claire GHERRAERT-GRAFFEUILLE (Université de Rouen) - Formes et figures de la tyrannie dans The Memoirs of the Life of Colonel Hutchinson de Lucy Hutchinson (c. 1670)

Break
11h00-12h15 The birth of the modern Prince: France, England, the Low Countries
Chair Luc BOROT (Université Paul Valéry Montpellier 3)

• Martin DZELZAINIS (University of Leicester) – ‘Hostis humani generis from Milton to Locke

• Blandine KRIEGEL (Université de Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense) – Le Prince moderne, de la souveraineté absolue à la séparation des pouvoirs : Bodin, Hobbes, Spinoza

Lunch
Afternoon
14h00-15h15 Reflections of the Tyrant in Enlightenment Europe

• Monique COTTRET (Université de Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense) - Damiens et l’image de Louis XV, les faux-semblants du tyrannicide au tournant des Lumières

• Alexandra SIPPEL (Université Toulouse Jean Jaurès) – “Queen Tudorina of Bonhommica: ideal monarchy v. Hanoverian decadence in The Travels of Hildebrand Bowman (1778)”

Break
15h30-17h15 Banishing the Tyrant: the time of revolution

• Carine LOUNISSI (Université de Rouen) – “A sovereignty to will and a sovereignty to act": du despote au souverain chez Thomas Paine

• Suzanne LEVIN (Université de Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense) – From King Log to Despot: The Turning Point of Varennes in the Republican Press

• Felix MANGANO (Université de Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense) - Tyrannicide et politique linguistique.

17h45 Conference closing remarks

 Organising Committee:

• Myriam-Isabelle Ducrocq (Université de Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense - CREA)

• Laïla Ghermani (Université de Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense - CREA)

• Anne-Marie Miller Blaise (Université La Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris 3 – PRISMES)

• Alexandra Sippel (Université Toulouse Jean Jaurès – CAS)

Scientific Committee:

• Marc Belissa (Université de Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense - CHISCO)

• Jauffrey Berthier (Université Bordeaux Montaigne - SPH)

• Luc Borot (Université Paul Valéry Montpellier 3- IRCL UMR 5186)

• Nicolas Dubos (Université Bordeaux Montaigne - SPH)

• Myriam-Isabelle Ducrocq (Université de Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense - CREA)

• Blandine Kriegel (Université de Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense)

• Laïla Ghermani (Université de Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense - CREA)

• Christian Lazzeri (Université de Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense - SOPHIAPOL)

• Franck Lessay (Université La Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris 3)

• Rachel Rogers (Université Toulouse Jean Jaurès - CAS)

• Miri Rubin (Queen Mary University London)

• Raffaella Santi (Universita di Urbino, Carlo Bo)

More information here.
 (source: calenda.org)

BOOK: "Emozioni, crimine e giustizia. Un'indagine storico-giuridica fra Otto e Novecento" by Emilia Musumeci (November 2015)

Emilia Musumeci

Emozioni, crimine e giustizia. Un'indagine storico-giuridica fra Otto e Novecento

all information here

Interrogarsi oggi sul rapporto tra crimine ed emozioni vuol dire non solo comprendere qual è il ruolo che ha svolto e continua a svolgere l’emotività dentro e fuori i tribunali ma anche se è possibile adoperare le “vecchie” categorie del diritto penale per fronteggiare le nuove sfide della contemporaneità.

Relegati nell'alveo dell'irrazionale o del patologico emozioni, sentimenti e passioni quali odio, disgusto, onore, vergogna, empatia fino ad alcuni anni addietro sembravano destinati ad essere considerati irrilevanti per il diritto penale, improntato ai valori di stampo illuministico, che hanno totalmente permeato tale disciplina in ogni suo aspetto a partire dalle scelte di politica criminale, dalla valutazione concreta dell'agire criminoso fino alla comminazione della sanzione penale da parte del giudice. 

BOOK: Thomas DUVE and Heikki PIHLAJAMÄKI (eds.), New Horizons in Spanish Colonial Law. Contributions to Transnational Early Modern Legal History [Global Perspectives on Legal History; 3] (Frankfurt am Main: MPI for European Legal History, 2015), 259 p. ISBN 9783944773025

(image source: MPI for European Legal History)

 
The series Global Perspectives on Legal History (MPI for European Legal History) published its third volume.

Presentation:

Derecho indiano, Spanish colonial law, has been a vigorous subdiscipline of legal history since the early 20th century. In 1997, in his Nuevos horizontes enel estudio histórico del derecho indiano, Argentinian legal historian Víctor Tau Anzoátegui considers some hitherto neglected perspectives. What has been achieved since then? What issues are being dealt with today? In this volume,scholars from different parts of the Western world address several of the current challenges confronting derecho indiano.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction: New Horizons of Derecho Indiano (Thomas Duve & Heikki Pihlajamäki)
•  Spanish American and British American Law as Mirrors to Each Other: Implications of the Missing Derecho Británico Indiano (Richard J. Ross)
• Revisiting the America’s Colonial Status under the Spanish Monarchy (Rafael D. García Pérez)
• Did European Law Turn American? Territory, Property and Rights in an Atlantic World (Tamar Herzog)
• The Westernization of Police Regulation: Spanish and British Colonial Laws Compared (Heikki Pihlajamäki)
• The Theater of Conscience in the "Living Law" of the Indies (Brian P. Owensby)
• Víctor Tau Anzoátegui and the Legal Historiography of the Indies (Ezequiel Abásolo)
• Between America and Europa: The Strange Case of the derecho indiano (Luigi Nuzzo)
• More than just Vestiges. Notes for the Study of Colonial Law History in Spanish America after 1808 (Marta Lorente Sariñena)
• Provincial and Local Law of the Indies. A Research Program (Víctor Tau Anzoátegui)

The full book can be downloaded for free (open access) here.

JOB: 25 Postdoctoral positions for incoming doctors, University of Liège (Belgium); DEADLINE 16 Feb 2016

(image source: Academic Positions.be)

Summary:

The University of Liege invites applications for twenty-five postdoctoral fellowships funded by the FP7-MSCA-COFUND “Be International PostDoc” postdoctoral programme.Located near to the German and Dutch borders, the University of Liege (ULg) welcomes about 20,000 students on its 3 campuses (Liege, Arlon, Gembloux). It offers curricula in a comprehensive set of subjects. Teaching languages are French and in English.
The University of Liege is a “research university”, with about 2,000 PhD students, 2500 researchers and 600 professors. It devotes more than half of its annual budget to research. Its activities extend from fundamental to applied research, with strong interactions between disciplines. The ULg is very proud to contribute, in close collaboration with private companies, to the development of the Walloon region through research and the creation of spin-offs.
Liege (population size 200,000) is a friendly and affordable city where one is never alone. People speak very easily to you in the streets, on the bus or in the famous pubs of the area known as “Le Carré (the square)”. Up the hill, just beside the City centre, you can enjoy magnificent panoramic views and discover hidden gardens. Liege is extremely popular for its weekly 0outdoor Sunday morning market and its dynamic and modern cultural life (museum, theatre, opera, Philharmonic orchestra). Parks and gardens host families when the sun is shining. The City of Liege is also known for its intercultural diversity, due to the migrants and the numerous exchange students who choose Liege as their destination.
Fellowship duration: 24 months. The fellowship must start between 1/10/2016 and 31/12/2016.
Research areas: All research areas are eligible

Requirements:

Applicants must fulfil the following conditions.
•They must have obtained a PhD abroad and not have lived or worked in their main job in Belgium for more than 24 months in the past 3 years before the start of the BeIPD-COFUND fellowship;
•If they are allocated the grant, they must be doing full-time unconstrained research at ULg;
•During the fellowship, the applicant may not perform other paid work for ULg or a third party.
Additional conditions are imposed within the BeIPD-COFUND programme:
•The applicant must have obtained his/ her doctoral degree after 1 October 2010 or be in a position to obtain his/ her doctoral degree before 16 March 2016. The earliest admissible date of the doctoral degree will be set back by one year per maternity/paternity leave, with a max. of 2 years;
•Applicants may not have previously held a research position (grant, work contract, FNRS post-doc) at ULg before the start of the BeIPD-COFUND fellowship;
•Applicants may not have benefited from a “Belgian post-doc grant” for more than 12 months before the start of the BeIPD-COFUND fellowship.

Salary and duties:

Monthly salary (about 2.200€ net per month with social security, health care, insurances, and additional family allowance for dependent children) + 15.000€/y research running cost, travel and mobility allowance.

How to apply:

As described in the “Guide for applicants” (http://www.ulg.ac.be/cofund): online applications should be received no later than 12 February 2016, 23:59 GMT+1.
Selection results will be announced in June 2016.

Contact:

 Mrs Raphaela Delahaye MA, BeIPD-COFUND Project Manager
 Université de Liège
 Administration Recherche & Développement (ARD)
 Place du XX Août, 7
 B- 4000  Liège – Belgique
 Tél :  +32 (0)4 366 91 04
beipd@ulg.ac.be

Source: Academic Positions.

BOOK: Eric DE MARI, La mise hors la loi sous la Révolution Française. Une étude juridictionnelle et et institutionnelle (1793 - an III) [Bibliothèque d'histoire du droit et de droit romain, 30] (Paris: LGDJ, 2015), 614 p. ISBN 978-2-275-04708-9

(image source: LGDJ)

Prof. dr. Eric de Mari (University of Montpellier) published his 1991 doctoral thesis La mise hors la loi sous la Révolution Française. Une étude juridictionnelle et institutionnelle (1793-an III) in the series "Bibliothèque d'histoire du droit et de droit romain" at LGDJ.

Summary;

Voici une thèse enfin publiée sur un sujet particulièrement sensible pour l'histoire de France : celui de la répression politique sous la Terreur pendant la Révolution française. La Mise hors de la loi, ici minutieusement enquêtée, est un ensemble de mesures qui du printemps 1793 à l'été 1794, pour l'essentiel, permit la répression de 22 000 citoyens devenus « Hors la loi » et la condamnation à mort de 13 000 d'entre eux.Sur la base de volumineuses sources d'archives (plus de 80 dépôts d'archives ont été exploités), un bilan est tiré sur une répression, ici essentiellement locale. Dans une France encore mal connue hors de sa capitale, les ressorts de la Terreur judiciaire et d'un droit révolutionnaire d'exception frappent en dehors de la loi une masse de contre-révolutionnaires ou qualifiés comme tels : émigrés, prêtres réfractaires, opposants politiques, rebelles, émeutiers et tant d'autres. Quelle est la part du droit dans la violence judiciaire ? Quel fut le rôle des juges dans cette histoire mortifère ? Quelles traces nous laissent pour l'avenir ces pratiques juridiques ? Telles sont les questions auxquelles tente de répondre ce travail.

More information on the publisher's website.

La Fabrique de l'Histoire (France Culture) devoted a debate to this work, featuring Dr. Claire Zalc (CNRS). The podcast can be found here.

BOOK: "La loi de la chair. Le droit au corps du conjoint dans l'œuvre des canonistes (XIIe-XVe siècle)" by Marta Madero (Paris, 2015)

Marta Madero, La loi de la chair Le droit au corps du conjoint dans l'œuvre des canonistes (XIIe-XVe siècle)

all information here

Presentation

En montrant que le droit au corps de l'autre est aussi, à partir du XIIe siècle, au coeur de l’institution du mariage, Marta Madero éclaire d’une manière nouvelle une histoire – celle des relations charnelles et des liens matrimoniaux – qui a fait pourtant l’objet de nombreux travaux ces dernières décennies. Elle a découvert en effet que les canonistes du XIIe au XVe siècle construisent un régime juridique des rapports de chair avec les règles que le droit romain appliquait aux rapports de possession et de propriété des hommes sur les choses et même à la subordination des choses entre elles. L’objet du consentement est bien, dès le XIIe siècle – on a eu tendance à l’oublier –, le droit au corps du conjoint. Mais est-ce que ce droit s’exerce sur une chose qui serait le corps, ou sur une partie du corps ? Ou bien s’agit-il d’une servitude réelle que ce corps porte comme l’on dit qu’un champ est grevé d’une servitude de passage attachée aux champs voisins ? Quels sont les actes qui font naître ou cesser ce droit au corps du conjoint ? Peut-il renaître, et comment ? Invoquer le droit au corps de l’autre, c’est aussi, on le comprend alors, une autre façon de purifier les liens de la chair comme les alchimistes éliminent les scories de la matière. Et l’œuvre au noir des canonistes et des juges ouvre ainsi le vaste espace d’une casuistique dont l’étude nous prépare à mieux comprendre sans doute les méthodes et l’historicité du droit contemporain, mais aussi peut-être la préhistoire de nos sexualités.

Table of contents

CONFERENCE: Learning Law by Doing: Exploring Legal Literacy in Premodern Societies (Turku, 14-15 Jan 2016)

(image source: joineusee.eu)

LEARNING LAW BY DOING:

EXPLORING LEGAL LITERACY IN PREMODERN SOCIETIES

14-15 January 2016,
Faculty of Law, University of Turku, Finland

PRELIMINARY PROGRAM

Thu 14 Jan. 2016

9.45-10.15       Registration 

10.15-11.45      Welcome
        Introduction to Premodern Legal Literacy

        KEYNOTE LECTURE 1: 
Kitrina Bevan (University of Exeter/Independent Scholar): Legal Education in Late Medieval England: How Did Provincial Scriveners Learn Their Law?

11.45-13.00      Lunch

13.00-14.30     Session 1: LEGAL LITERACY IN THE PRE-MODERN EUROPEAN COUNTRYSIDE

Kendra Willson (University of Turku): The Panel of Neighbors in Early Icelandic Law

Riikka Miettinen (University of Tampere): The Laity’s Legal Knowledge and Utilization of the ‘Insanity Defence’ in Early Modern Sweden

Olli Viitaniemi (University of Helsinki): Finnish Pietistic Peasants Coping Strategy during Conventicle Act Trials between 1820-40s

14.30-15.00 Coffee break

15.00-16.00 SESSION 2: LEARNING BY DOING IN EUROPEAN COURTS OF APPEAL 

Anette Baumann (University of Gießen): The Imperial Chamber Court as a Training Centre

Marianne Vasara-Aaltonen (University of Helsinki): Legal Learning of Various Kinds: Swedish Court of Appeal Judges in the Seventeenth Century

16.00-16.30 Coffee break

16.30-17.30      SESSION 3: FROM LITERACY TOWARDS PROFESSIONALISM

Marianna Muravyeva (Higher School of Economics, St. Petersburg): ‘Instead of N. witnessed the deed’: Russian Legal Profession in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

Heikki Pihlajamäki (University of Helsinki): From Legal Literates to Professional Advocates: Legal Counsel in Helsinki Courts, 1820-1880

17.30    Wine Reception

19.00    Dinner

Fri 15 Jan. 2016

9.00-10.30      SESSION 4: LEGAL LITERACY AND AGENCY IN EARLY MODERN EUROPEAN TOWNS

Petteri Impola (University of Jyväskylä): Agency of a Self-Educated Legal Representative in Seventeenth-Century Finland

Mia Korpiola (University of Turku): Legal Literates in Early Modern Swedish Towns: Evidence of Book Ownership in Estate Inventories

Griet Vermeesch (Free University of Brussels): The Legal Agency of Single Mothers. Lawsuits over Illegitimate Children and the Uses of Legal Aid to the Poor in the Dutch Town of Leiden (1750–1810)

10.30-11.00      Coffee break

11.00-12.15      KEYNOTE LECTURE 2:
Anna Kuismin (University of Helsinki): Ideal Types and Odd Men out: Legal Literacy and Social Mobility in Nineteenth-Century Finland

12.15-14.00      Lunch

14.00-15.30      SESSION 5: LEARNING THE LAW BY POPULAR LEGAL LITERATURE

Annamaria Monti (University of Bocconi, Milan): Popular Legal Manuals: Sources and Mechanisms of Acquiring Legal Literacy (17th-19th-Centuries) 

Jussi Sallila (University of Helsinki): Popular Legal Learning and Mid-Nineteenth-Century Finnish Nationalism

Laetitia Guerlain & Nader Hakim (University of Bordeaux): Acquiring Legal Literacy: Popular Legal Literature in Nineteenth-Century France

The conference venue is the Faculty of Law, Calonia, Caloniankuja 3, Turku.

It is possible to register online for the conference through the conference webpage: 
https://www.utu.fi/en/units/law/news/events/Pages/learning-law-by-doing.aspx


For more information, please contact Mia Korpiola (mia.korpiola[at]utu.fi).

JOURNAL: Tijdschrift voor Rechtsgeschiedenis/Revue d'Histoire du Droit/The Legal History Review LXXXIII (3-4)

(image source: Brill)

Brill announced the publication of a new issue of the Tijdschrift voor Rechtsgeschiedenis/Revue d'Histoire du Droit/The Legal History Review (vol. LXXXIII (3-4)).

Table of contents:

Research articles:
Civilians and insurance: approximations of reality to the law
 (Guido Rossi) (323-364)

Decreta Frontiana. Some observations on D. 29,2,99 and the ‘law reports’ of Titius Aristo
 (Willem J. Zwalve) (365-391)

Mora creditoris im römischen Recht
 (Pia Reetz) (392-420)

Subsiciva Byzantina nova
 (Andreas Schminck) (421-439)

Statuti e cultura giuridica. Bergamo, Alberico da Rosciate e una quaestio sulla pace privata

 (Marta Cerrito) (440-460)

Consequences of changing expectations to law and its institutions illustrated by the role and background of judges in Norway

 (Sören Koch) (461-486)

Breaking with bourgeois rules and traditions
. The divorce files of Eastern German courts in the late 1940s
 (Martin Löhnig) (487-513)

Book reviews:

Freiheitsbeschränkungen der Dekurionen in der Spätantike written by A. Baumann, 2014
 (A.J.B. Sirks) (512-522)

Family life onder de VOC, Een handelscompagnie in huwelijks- en gezinszaken, written by Carla van Wamelen, 2014
 (A.J.B. Sirks) (523-530)

The Roman law of obligations, edited by E. Descheemaeker, written by Peter Birks, 2014
 (A.J.B. Sirks) (531-532)

Chronique (533-537)

Nécrologie (H.J.A Lokin & B.H. Stolte) (539-542)

 More information with Brill.