SUMMER BREAK (20 JUL-12 AUG)

 (image generated by AI using Bing Image Creator)

The ESCLH blog goes in to Summer Break until Monday 12 August.

Enjoy the pleasure of a physical book or a quiet nap under the shade of a tree. 

BOOK: Die Urkunden Friedrichs II., t. 7 (1232–1236) - eds. Christian FRIEDL, Katharina GUTERMUTH, Klaus HOFLINGER, Maximilian LANG, Katharina MEISTER, Joachim SPIEGEL (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2024). ISBN: 9783447119702

(Image source: Harrassowitz Verlag)

ABOUT THE BOOK

Der siebte Band der Urkunden Friedrichs II. beinhaltet die Privilegien und Mandate des Stauferkaisers von Anfang 1232 bis Mitte August 1236. Für diesen Zeitraum sind insgesamt 258 Urkunden zu verzeichnen, darüber hinaus sind zwei Nachtragsurkunden für den vierten Band enthalten.

Die erste Hälfte der 1230er Jahre ist sowohl von den Auseinandersetzungen mit den Städten der Lombardischen Liga geprägt, die Friedrich II. bis zu seinem Tod nie ganz unter seine Herrschaft zwingen konnte, als auch von dem Konflikt mit seinem Sohn, der ein ebenso spektakuläres wie rigoroses Ende nahm. Diese Zeit der kaiserlichen Rastlosigkeit führte den Staufer vom äußersten Süden des Reiches (Niederwerfung ungehorsamer Städte wie Messina) nach Norditalien (Durchsetzung seines imperialen Herrschaftsanspruches) und bis über die Alpen nach Deutschland, wo der Kaiser der Königsherrschaft seines Sohnes Heinrich (VII.) ohne jede Milde ein drastisches Ende setzte. Die Glanzstücke des Bandes wurden allesamt während seines Aufenthalts in Deutschland ausgestellt: Zu den wohl bekanntesten Urkunden zählen der für die deutsche Rechtsgeschichte überaus bedeutsame Mainzer Reichslandfrieden von 1235, der Bericht über die Translation der kurz zuvor heiliggesprochenen Elisabeth von Thüringen sowie Friedrichs II. modernes, weil tolerantes Urteil zum berühmten Fuldaer Judenmord. Die (nur vorübergehende) Zusammenarbeit mit dem Papsttum, die bereits mit der zweiten Exkommunikation 1239 durch Gregor IX. endete, spiegelt sich in den insgesamt elf Schreiben wider, die Friedrich II. in diesen Jahren an den summus pontifex der abendländischen Kirche richtete.

More information can be found here.

PODCAST: Voices of JHIL

 

(image source: iTunes)

The Journal of the History of International Law/Revue d'Histoire du Droit International (Brill) launched a podcast, whereby authors are interviewed on seminal papers or books reviewed.

A new episode is available: "From the International Law of Christianity to the International Law of the World Citizen,” by Heinhard Steiger, with Dominik Steiger

Abstract:

Although normative rules for the regulation of inter-power relationships have existed for centuries, the term “international law” and the meanings we attach to it today differs strongly from earlier notions of international law that we can find throughout world history. In Episode 3 of Voices of JHIL, we talk to Dominik Steiger about Heinhard Steiger’s, article “From the International Law of Christianity to the International Law of the World Citizen,” published in JHIL 3(2) (2000), 180-193

See Spotify, iTunes.

JOURNAL: Journal of the History of International Law/Revue d'histoire du droit international XXVI (2024), Nr. 2 (July)

 

(image source: Brill)

A New History for Human Rights: Conflict of Laws as Adjacent Possibility (León Castellanos-Jankiewicz) [OPEN ACCESS]
DOI 10.1163/15718050-bja10095
Abstract:

The pivotal contributions of private international law to the conceptual emergence of international human rights law have been largely ignored. Using the idea of adjacent possibility as a theoretical metaphor, this article shows that conflict of laws analysis and technique enabled the articulation of human rights universalism. The nineteenth-century epistemic practice of private international law was a key arena where the claims of individuals were incrementally cast as being spatially independent from their state of nationality before rights universalism became mainstream. Conflict of laws was thus a vital combinatorial ingredient contributing to the dislocation of rights from territory that underwrites international human rights today. 

International Lawyers as Hope Mongers: How Did We Come to Believe That Democracy Was Here to Stay? (Işıl Aral)
DOI 10.1163/15718050-bja10098
Abstract:

It is common these days to lament the recession of democracy around the world. The way scholars address the issue of democratic backsliding shows that there is a significant gap between the expectation about democracy’s anticipated course of development and the current state of affairs. This article argues that the expectation that democracy would consolidate over time was produced by the progress narrative of democratic governance discourses. Drawing on narratology, it conducts a discourse analysis to demonstrate that today’s dismay about the recession of democracy is due to an unwarranted expectation that was created by the progress narrative of democratic governance discourses. It focuses on the periodisation of history in the construction of these discourses and investigates how scholars used the Cold War – post-Cold War dichotomy to create a progress narrative.

The Twilight of the Law of the Fairs: Inventing International Cooperation on Bankruptcies in Early Modern Europe (Lyon, 1660–1710) (Benoît Saint-Cast)
DOI  10.1163/15718050-bja10094
Abstract:

Bankruptcy was a key institution in the development of markets in Europe. However, the territoriality of jurisdictions and legal systems made international insolvencies difficult to manage. In the middle of the seventeenth century, cities such as Lyon developed networks of cooperation by granting foreign merchants equal rights to local creditors on a reciprocal basis. However, courts were reluctant to give foreign authorities control over assets and creditors on their territory. The article examines how the Lyon commercial court changed its policy towards international insolvencies during the second half of the seventeenth century. Whereas equal treatment of foreign creditors was conditioned on the recognition of an extraterritorial jurisdiction in the medieval fairs system, it now depended on the reciprocity of the legal status granted to merchants abroad. This system of cooperation between equally sovereign courts prefigured in many ways the current situation of private international law in bankruptcy matters.

Book review

The Political Economy of International Commodity Cartels: An Economic History of the European Timber Trade in the 1930s , written by Elina Kuorelahti (Florenz Volkaert) 
DOI 10.1163/15718050-bja10108

Read the full issue here.

BOOK: Mireille TOUZERY, Payer pour le roi. La fiscalité monarchique 1302-1792 (Paris: Champ Vallon, 2024). ISBN: 9791026711780

(Image source: Champ Vallon)

ABOUT THE BOOK

Saviez-vous que le duc de Bretagne voulut taxer une baleine échouée à Morlaix, comme « poisson ducal » ? Saviez-vous qu’en Aquitaine au temps de François Ier et dans le Cotentin au temps de Louis XIII, des milliers de paysans combattirent jusqu’à la mort pour refuser la gabelle du sel ? La fiscalité, ce n’est pas que de l’argent : elle révèle toute une société et retrace son histoire. Durant cinq siècles, de Philippe le Bel à la Révolution, chaque sujet du roi a été concerné par l’impôt, pour le payer ou pour ne pas le payer. Souvent pour s’y opposer. Comment comprendre cette acceptation ou ce refus ? Quand ? Comment ? Pourquoi ? Où ?

Voici, pour la première fois raconté, dans l’ensemble du territoire français dans ses frontières de 1789, le combat de chaque région, de chaque cité, de chaque paroisse (4 000 sont ici étudiées), de chaque corps pour maintenir son statut fiscal particulier et, au-delà, pour affirmer une singularité que seule la Révolution a su intégrer dans une identité unique en transformant chaque sujet en citoyen.

L’État royal n’a pas été que répressif : tantôt absolue, tantôt négociatrice, cette monarchie à deux visages a eu pour interlocuteurs des habitants qui se sont impliqués, à l’échelle du village ou de la ville, par la fiscalité, dans la gestion de la chose publique. La levée de l’impôt direct principal, la taille, leur a été laissée, en toute autonomie, par le roi, contre l’obligation de payer solidairement, « le fort portant le faible », ce qui a entraîné choix économiques, rapports de force, solidarités, intérêts bien compris. Avant que les inégalités, devenues insupportables au siècle des Lumières, ne fassent exploser la société des trois ordres.

Grâce à une documentation chiffrée inédite, une cartographie abondante (129 cartes dont 84 originales), des graphiques (84) et des tableaux (77) éclairants, Mireille Touzery nous offre le fruit de plus de vingt ans de recherche : la première histoire de la fiscalité royale, de sa naissance (1302) à sa mort (1792). Cette histoire est aussi celle de l’État, colonne vertébrale de la « nation France ».

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mireille Touzery est professeure d’histoire moderne à l’université de Paris-Est-Créteil et membre du Comité pour l’histoire économique et financière de la France et de la Société de l’histoire de France.

More information can be found here.

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS: PHEDRA Winter School, 'Corporate and mercantile bankruptcy, insolvency and debt: approaches from legal and economic history' (Venice, 29-31 OCT 2024) [DEADLINE 20 AUG 2024]

 

Corporate and mercantile bankruptcy, insolvency and debt: approaches from legal and economic history

Venice, 29-31 October 2024

Call for applications

In October 2024, the PHEDRA network will organize a workshop on the history of insolvency and bankruptcy (Middle Ages-19th century). This workshop has the aim to delve into these themes and to explore the combined legal and economic aspects of phenomena connected to insolvency and bankruptcy. From the vantage point of economic history, insolvency is linked to credit, private and public ordering. Legal historians have emphasized the cultural aspects of insolvency regulations and the transplanting of remedies and proceedings.  The hybridity of the problem of insolvency, which touches upon both economic and legal questions, also in their combination, invites further reflection.

The workshop consists of a series of lectures by specialists on the topic and presentations by doctoral candidates on their research. 

PhD students working on a topic that is connected to the theme of the workshop are invited to apply. Accommodation will be provided and costs of travel will be reimbursed. 

The IRN PHEDRA project aims at developing a concerted approach to European research on the history of business law, from antiquity to the present day, apprehended in its « European ecosystem ». This theme remains little explored by historiography, which nevertheless underlines the extent to which commercial norms and practices constitute a fundamental element in the study of issues related to the historical transformation of our societies.

How to Apply
Applicants are requested to send a CV and an abstract of their PhD thesis (maximum 1 page) to the email address phedravenice@gmail.com before 20 August 2024.

If you have further queries, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Best regards,

Prof. L. Brunori

Prof. D. De ruysscher

BOOK: Ange ROVERE, Pascal Paoli. De Lumières et d'ombres [Les Méditerranées; 21] (Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2024), ISBN 978-2-406-16669-6, € 48

(image source: Classiques Garnier)

Abstract:

Pascal Paoli domine l’histoire de la Corse au XVIIIe siècle. Ce livre étudie la manière dont il a essayé de construire un État dans une société lestée par ses archaïsmes et les rivalités internationales. Sa participation à la Révolution et sa rupture avec Paris éclairent la permanence de ses choix politiques.

 Read more here: DOI 10.48611/isbn.978-2-406-16671-9.

 

BOOK: Elena MACCIONI, I tribunali mercantili nei comuni italiani. Giustizia, politica, economia (secoli XII-XV) (Roma: Viella, 2024). ISBN: 9791254695593

(Image source: Viella) 

ABOUT THE BOOK

Fra XII e XIII secolo nelle città dell’Italia centro-settentrionale (e non solo) iniziarono a sorgere universitates mercantili dalla natura sfuggente. Assunsero la forma del tribunale, della corporazione, dell’ufficio comunale; ed ebbero in molti casi un ruolo cruciale nelle vicende politiche urbane ed extraurbane.

Attraverso un prolifico ricorso alla comparazione, questo saggio ne rintraccia le tipologie, le modalità di azione, il ruolo politico, diplomatico, giudiziario e amministrativo; e restituisce un’immagine estremamente complessa delle dinamiche di potere, in corrispondenza sia dell’emergere del comune podestarile e popolare che dei domini personali.

Il risultato va al cuore pulsante stesso della vita associata tardomedievale, nutrito dal dialogo continuo fra le ragioni della giustizia, della politica e dell’economia.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Elena Maccioni è assegnista di ricerca presso l’Università di Cagliari. Si occupa di storia economica, giuridica e politica della Corona d’Aragona e delle città italiane, con un particolare riguardo per Genova. Fra le sue pubblicazioni si segnala Il Consolato del mare di Barcellona: tribunale e corporazione di mercanti (1394-1462), Viella-IRCVUM, 2019.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduzione

1. Davanti al mare

1. Genova e Venezia: giustificare una scelta geografica
2. Genova: il contesto politico, istituzionale ed economico
3. Venezia: il contesto politico, istituzionale ed economico
4. Genova: la normativa
5. Genova: la giustizia mercantile
6. Venezia: struttura istituzionale, normativa e giustizia mercantile
7. Venezia: le rappresaglie
8. Conclusioni

2. Le mercanzie in Pianura padana

1. Introduzione
2. Piacenza
3. Cremona
4. Verona
5. Pavia
6. Milano
7. Conclusioni

3. Il Centro Italia

1. Introduzione
2. Siena
3. Pisa
4. Firenze
5. Conclusioni e confronti

Conclusioni

More information can be found here.

YOUTUBE: Lecture Series "Legal History Meets Digital Humanities" (MPILHLT)

 

  

On the series:

"Legal History Meets Digital Humanities" is a seminar series organised by Max-Planck-Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory. On this channel you can find the recordings of the seminar lectures. The aim of the seminar is to bring into focus various methodological and theoretical questions that arise at the intersection of legal history, history and digital humanities, and to serve as a forum for discussion between the Institute's researchers and experts in the field.

The five first episodes can be consulted above, or on Youtube. 

More information on the MPILHLT's website. 

CALL FOR PAPERS: Residues and Innovations within Imperial Orders. Political Assemblies in Continental Europe, 1800-1850 (Warsaw: DHI, PAS, 23-24 JAN 2025); DEADLINE 31 AUG 2024

(image source: IHPAN)

Organizers: Piotr Kuligowski, Wiktor Marzec, Bartosz Dziewanowski-Stefańczyk Academic Committee: Marnix Beyen, Anna Grześkowiak-Krwawicz, Paulina Kewes, Judit Pál, Henk te Velde First Edition, 23-24 January 2025

The turn of the 18th and 19th centuries witnessed profound transformations in the political landscape of continental Europe, that might be dubbed a Napoleonic moment. Novel ideas regarding national community and state centralization led to the rapid decline of residual republican systems, including almost synchronous collapses of the Dutch Republic, Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and Italian city-republics. Simultaneously, it paved the way for a new type of political assemblies representing a broader, modernly conceived nation, including the third estate. These newly established bodies often deviated from local political traditions, generating uncertainty but also stirring desire for change. These were, however, often created by politicians educated in the time of the 18th century ancien régime. The year 1815 marked a new wave of parliamentarization in Europe, guided by the provisions of the Congress of Vienna and subsequent treaties. Unlike in the Napoleonic era, the architects of the post- Viennese order sought to restore and adapt previously existing representative institutions.

Both pre- and post-Vienna political assemblies, characterized by limited sovereignty were integrated into a broader imperial orders but often situated in buffer zones of empires. While securing imperial rule in these diverse interfaces, these assemblies articulated national-revolutionary claims in times of upheavals and crises, which spurred on centrifugal forces. By comparing these assemblies in the context of their nascent parliamentary culture mixing old forms and innovative designs, a deeper understanding of imperial nexus of power sovereignty, and representation on heterogenous territories can be fostered.

In the first edition of the ‘Parliamentary Junctures in Continental Europe’ conference, we welcome submissions addressing various aspects of representative assemblies’ internal and external functioning during the first half of the nineteenth century. Exemplary areas of inquiry include, but are not limited to:

• parliamentary rhetoric / discourse and concepts,
• rearticulations of traditions,
• procedural and conceptual innovations,
• assemblies in interface peripheries and inter-imperial bids,
• social composition of assemblies.

Particular attention will be given to political assemblies situated in imperial borderlands.

Submission deadline: August 31st, 2024

Please send the title, abstract (up to 300 words), and a short CV (one-two pages) at parljunctures@mail.com

Selection results: mid-September 2024

Venues:

• German Historical Institute, Warsaw (23rd of January 2025)
• Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw (24th of January 2025)

Practicalities: The conference organizer will provide accommodation to all participants. If necessary, travel expenses may be covered up to 300 EUR. The conference results will be published in the form of a special issue of a respected journal in the field (in English). Participants are expected to circulate drafts of their papers at least two weeks before the workshop.

Read more here.

BOOK: Matthias SCHMOECKEL, Das Recht der Reformation in Frankreich und die Vollendung des modernen Staates (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2024), 345 p., ISBN 978-3-16-163298-3

 

ABOUT THE BOOK:

Die französische Rechtsgeschichte ist in Deutschland noch immer zu wenig bekannt: Die Erfindung der Gewaltentrennung wird Montesquieu zugeschrieben, nicht Claude de Seyssel, der dies aufgrund der Abnabelung der französischen Kirche von Rom um 1515 erstmals vertrat. Der Beginn der Diskussionen zur Verfassung und von Grundrechten liegt nicht im 18. Jahrhundert, sondern bei Jean Calvin bzw. dem Schock nach dem Bartholomäusnacht-Massaker. Ziel war der Erhalt des Königreichs unter einem Monarchen, der den verschiedenen Religionen als Rechtsgemeinschaften ebenso wie den Bürgern durch Recht gesicherte Möglichkeiten eines sicheren Lebens in Religionsvielfalt versprach. Mathias Schmoeckel analysiert das Vordringen der Reformation in der Rechtsordnung und Jurisprudenz, analysiert den Begriff »mos gallicus«, und beschreibt dann die Veränderungen des französischen Rechts in Bezug auf die Methoden und Quellen der Rechtswissenschaftler sowie die Auswirkungen auf die Religions- und Staatsordnung sowie ausgewählte Fragen des Zivil- und Strafrechts. Er zeigt, dass das »goldene Zeitalter« der französischen Jurisprudenz durch Guilleaume Farel und Calvin im Sinne einer »Reformation des Lebens« entwickelt wurde, um die herkömmliche Rechtsordnung zu überdenken und feste Rechte für Katholiken und Protestanten gleichermaßen zu gestalten. Dabei wirkten insbesondere die methodischen Anregungen des Philipp Melanchthon; die Juristen um ihn waren bekannt und wurden herangezogen, um sie weiterzuentwickeln. Die Auseinandersetzung mit dem Humanismus ging auch in Frankreich eine Verbindung mit der Reformation ein und führte zu einer neuen Wertschätzung der lokalen Rechtstraditionen. Alle Zweige der Rechtswissenschaft entwickelten neue Anregungen und bedeutende Literatur, die für die weitere juristische Entwicklung in Europa grundlegend wurden. Die insoweit fast unbekannte französische Reformation tritt hier in ihrer Bedeutung für die europäische Geistesgeschichte und Staatsentwicklung in den gleichen Rang neben die deutsche und die englische Reformation.

Read more here.

PODCAST: Florian REVERCHON, La théorie des nullités: 2000 ans d'histoire [Les Lois de l'Histoire Podcast, Université Sorbonne Paris Nord, Paul CHAUVIN]

 

Prof. Florian Reverchon (Toulouse) was interviewed for the podcast Les lois de l'histoire (Paul Chauvin) on "la théorie des nullités: 2000 ans d'histoire".

The podcast can be consulted above on Youtube and on the classical platforms.

ARTICLE: Achille MAROTTA, "The Muslim Friend: Cross-Confessional Male Intimacy in Eighteenth-Century Italy" (The Journal of Early Modern History ) 230-252 [OPEN ACCESS]

 

(iamge source: Brill)

Abstract:

In early modern Italy, stereotypes about Muslim men’s supposed inclination towards the vice of ‘sodomy’ gave rise to fears that Christian masculinity was being tainted. Eighteenth-century court records from the Republic of Genoa and the Papal States contain numerous instances of cross-confessional male relations that faced persecution by state authorities. In each of these cases, Christian men were prosecuted for taking a sexually ‘passive’ role in relation to sexually ‘active’ Muslims, while the reverse scenario was never pursued. This article argues that the sexual focus of judicial authorities obscured the enduring bonds of affection and mutual obligation that developed between men across religious lines. The existence of these relationships unveils an intimate sphere of connections across faith in the early modern Mediterranean while highlighting an intersectional site of Christian social anxiety, where fears of religious contamination overlapped with concerns about same-sex intimacy.

Read the article in open access: DOI 10.1163/15700658-bja10076.

BOOK: Sebastian SCHWAB, Geschichte und Argument [Grundlagen der Rechtswissenschaft; 59] (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2024), 517 p., ISBN 978-3-16-163526-7

 

ABOUT THE BOOK:

Historische Argumente im Recht geben Fragen auf. Warum argumentiert man im Recht unter Bezugnahme auf historisches Wissen, obwohl die Geschichtstheorie doch gezeigt hat, mit welchen Unsicherheiten es belastet ist? Und: Hat historische Argumentation in der deutschen Rechtsordnung Platz? Ist sie nicht viel zu reaktionär? Es bedarf eines Zweischritts: Man muss sich von den Debatten um die »historische Auslegung« lösen und historische Argumente ganz abstrakt als Ausdruck der Grundstruktur positiven Rechts fassen. Positives Recht muss historisch argumentieren, weil sich darin seine Rechtlichkeit erweist und aktualisiert. Daneben aber bedarf es einer Betrachtung, die sich tatsächlich auf die ganz konkrete Rechtsordnung einlässt. Nur dann sind Methodenfragen wirklich Verfassungsfragen. Zentrale Weichenstellungen im Verständnis des grundgesetzlichen Demokratieprinzips geraten so in den Fokus.

Read more here.

JOURNAL: Pro Memorie. Bijdragen tot de Rechtsgeschiedenis der Nederlanden XXVI (2024), No. 1

Redactioneel (Bram Van Hofstraeten & Paul Brood)
DOI 10.5117/PROM2024.1.001.REDA

Arbitrage in de vroegmoderne Nederlanden (A.J.B. Sirks)
DOI 10.5117/PROM2024.1.002.SIRK
Abstract:

Arbitration has always been used to conclude conflicts outside of court. The Low Countries were no exception. Although based on an agreement between parties, there were rules to be followed; and the condition that an arbitral decision should be fair and equitable always made it possible to bring the case on these grounds before the competent court. A problem was the enforcement of an arbitral decision. In Flanders a solution was found: the voluntary condemnation, imposed upon request by the competent court on parties. This remedy was followed widely in the Northern Netherlands (and for all kinds of agreements), but appears to have been replaced in the Southern Netherlands by confirmation of the arbitral decision upon request by the competent court. This practice was probably taken over from France.

Vorstenportretten in vroege drukken van wetgeving in Holland en Zeeland (1500-1540) Vorstelijke propaganda of slimme marketing van drukkers-boekverkopers? (Marie-Charlotte Le Bailly)
DOI 10.5117/PROM2024.1.003.BAIL
Abstract:

Around 1500, just like other sovereigns in Europe, the higher authorities in the Habsburg Netherlands immediately used the printing press in the context of legal and political communication, for example to promulgate laws and statutes. Moreover, their visual aspect played an essential role in their dissemination, as many editions contain woodcuts with princely emblems and/or portraits. Because producing woodcuts was a labourintensive and costly process, printers reused woodblocks from other books, also in legislation. For example, Willem Vorsterman reused portraits of sovereigns he commissioned for his Excellente cronike van Vlaenderen (Antwerp, 1531) in his editions of ordinances. This contribution showcases illustrated ordinances issued in the county of Holland-Zeeland (1500-1540) and traces the origin of reused woodcuts in other texts. Were these portraits purely meant as political communication by the sovereign or was using this particular kind of woodcuts an invention of book printers to promote a new genre?

Rechtsgeleerde rechtsvinding in de Decisiones van Willem Radelant (1538-1612) (E.G.D. Van Dongen & J.M. Milo)
DOI 10.5117/PROM2024.1.004.DONG
Abstract:

Customary law, the unwritten mores of a populace, has a long tradition next to written law. Reception of Roman law, appearance of codified law and positivist methodologies have manoeuvred custom to the margins of the law as it stands, at least in the Netherlands, at the edge of the world. It should be taken seriously, however. The Decisiones of Willem Radelant, president of the Court of Utrecht, are a treasure trove in learned reasoning, and reveal customs growing from facts into accepted law, on the basis of formal criteria (mos, populus, tempus, ratio and aequitas). In Radelants reasoning the acceptance or denial of custom is remarkably oriented on the facts of the case, soundly distinguishing the specific from the general; it provides a systematic place for unwritten rule and decision, between the written signposts of Roman, Canon, feudal and local statutory rules and principles. It does not hesitate either to conditionally give primacy to custom over written law. It is thus a scholarly tale in practical decision-making, with mind and heart, on soft law in hard times

Over de verblinding van twee jonge nationaalsocialistische juristen (Corjo Jansen)
DOI  10.5117/PROM2024.1.005.JANS
Abstract:

The main roles in this article are for Harry van Cranenburgh (1915-1991) and Henk van der Heijden (1916-2012). They were students in Leiden in the decade before World War II. The author is searching for an answer on the question: which ideals and ideas cherished these young lawyers? It looks as they were convinced that the Dutch legal science had come to an end.

Knopen doorhakken en knopen tellen Over de afschaffing van handwissel en huurcerter (H.W. van Boom & M.P.F. Smit)
DOI 10.5117/PROM2024.1.006.BOOM
Abstract:

In the late 20th-century Netherlands, two peculiar types of Dutch rights in rem dating from medieval times were abolished. These two types of customary rights had different characters and different local origins. What they had in common was that in their final years, they hampered economic progress and became increasingly burdensome in socio-economic respect. This article analyses and compares the social and administrative pathways to abolition from both a legal historical and agenda-building perspective.

Recensies

• Natiestaat en kolonialisme (H.U. Jessurun d’Oliveira, Natiestaat & kolonialisme: een ongemakkelijk verbond. Ras en nationaliteit in de negentiende eeuw. Den Haag, Boom juridisch, 2023, 290 p. ISBN 978-94-6212-834-7) (Peter A.J. van den Berg)
• Rijkdom van rekesten (Joris Oddens, Op veler verzoek. Inclusieve politiek in Nederland (1780-1860). Amsterdam 2023. 324 p. ʬ 29,90. ISBN 9789024462476) (Paul Brood)

Read the issue online here.

BOOK: Marco ROSCINI, International Law and the Principle of Non-Intervention: History, Theory and Interactions with Other Principles (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2024), ISBN 9780191829031

 

(image source: Oxford Academic)

Abstract:

The principle of non-intervention in the domestic affairs of states is one of the most venerable principles of international law but the determination of its exact content has remained an enigma that has haunted generations of international lawyers. This book solves this problem and identifies what the principle of non-intervention specifically prohibits, and what it does not. The principle in question is strictly linked to some fundamental notions of international law, such as sovereignty, use of force, and self-determination: its study, therefore, is of great significance as it offers a fascinating opportunity to explore the macrostructures of international law. Through a comprehensive survey of primary documents, as well as through an extensive evaluation of state practice and literature search, the book provides a systematic and coherent analysis of the principle of non-intervention. The first two chapters tell the story of the principle of non-intervention throughout the centuries up to the present day. Chapters III and IV focus on theory and identify what coercion of state means, what forms of coercion (armed, economic, political subversive) can constitute an unlawful intervention, and the role played by consent in this context. Chapters V, VI, and VII explore the interactions of the principle of non-intervention with other fundamental principles of contemporary international law, namely the principle of internal and external self-determination and the respect for international human rights law and international humanitarian law. Finally, Chapter VIII investigates whether and when cyber operations can constitute an unlawful intervention in the domestic affairs of other states.

 Read more here: DOI 10.1093/oso/9780198786894.001.0001.

JOURNAL: Comparative Legal History XII (2024), No. 1

  

Editorial (Agustín Parise & Matthew Dyson)
DOI 10.1080/2049677X.2024.2349849

Articles

Early modern comparative contract law (Piotr Alexandrowicz)
DOI 10.1080/2049677X.2024.2349850
Abstract:

Contract law was one of the main subjects discussed in the early modern legal genre of differentiae iuris civilis et canonici (‘differences between civil and canon law’). Similar topics were covered in both late medieval and early modern differentiae – hence this genre offers a good opportunity for comparative historical research dedicated to selected topics of contract law (such as those discussed here: the actionability of bare agreements, stipulation for the benefit of a third party, overreaching in contract formation and the lease of a house to a scholar). An examination of the sources proves that the authors of early modern differentiae applied the comparative method in their works. This involved the presentation of sources and rationales from the two bodies of law, the interpretation of sources and arguments in favour of the solutions offered, references to the then-current legal literature and practice and most importantly the preferred method of reconciliation for conflicting laws.

Comparative nomogenetics: revisiting Wigmore’s oriental(ist) encounter and the taxonomy of his approach to global legal history (by Morad El Kadmiri) (OPEN ACCESS)
DOI 10.1080/2049677X.2024.2349851
Abstract:

John Henry Wigmore’s life experience as a Westerniser teaching Anglo-American Law in Japan from 1889 to 1892 is an example of legal orientalism. Engaging in the historical study of Japanese law despite diverging cultural paradigms between East and West paradoxically revealed striking similarities leading to the publication of the Materials for Study of Private Law in Old Japan in 1892. More than three decades after his return from Tokyo sparking a lasting fascination for foreign and comparative law, Wigmore published in 1928 A Panorama of the World’s Legal Systems. This case study offers insights on the relationship between legal history and comparative law that these publications respectively represent. The imprecise classification of A Panorama at a time when comparative law was at its infancy stage requires identifying a relevant taxonomy. Wigmore’s legacy is revisited with a focus on both its historical and comparative dimensions.

Parallels and patterns in the Italian (1901) and Hungarian (1903) legislation on migration (Balázs Pálvölgyi) [OPEN ACCESS]
DOI 10.1080/2049677X.2024.2349852
Abstract:

The second half of the nineteenth century was an era of mass labour migration in Europe, when the Atlantic route became of paramount importance alongside intra-continental mobility. From the last third of the century Italy and Hungary were among the most important emigrating countries. By this time changes in the regulation of migration had begun to take place with the development of stronger state control, which affected mobility and the relationship between emigrants and transporters. The question also arose as to whether and how the large emigrating states could ensure the loyalty of their emigrant citizens and control them en route and in the destination states. The regulatory process which began in the 1880s gradually moved from an administrative approach to the development of more comprehensive legal sources covering more and more aspects of emigration with the Hungarian government making use of foreign solutions, particularly the Italian Emigration Act of 1901. 

 

Review article

Three takes on comparative constitutional history (Ran Hirsch & Nicholas Slawnych)
DOI 10.1080/2049677X.2024.2349853
Abstract:

A review of The Gun, the Ship, and the Pen: Warfare, Constitutions, and the Making of the Modern World, by Linda Colley, New York, Liveright, 2021, 512 pp, $19.95 (pbk), ISBN 978-0871403162; Modern Constitutionalism: Origin and Manifestations. England – North America – France – Germany – Europe/European Union – Latin America, by Horst Dippel, Clark, Talbot Publishing, 2 vols, 2022, xxii + 546, x +547-1177 pp, $295.00 (hbk), ISBN 978-1616196769; The Story of Constitutions: Discovering the We in Us, by Wim Voermans, translated by Brendan Monaghan, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2023, 388 pp, £22.99 (pbk), ISBN 978-1009385046 [published originally in Dutch as Wim Voermans, Het verhaal van de grondwet: zoeken naar wij, Amsterdam, Prometheus, 2019, 512 pp, €34.99 (hbk), ISBN 978-9044640014]

Book reviews

• Arbeit und Familie in Nordwesteuropa im Spätmittelalter und in der Frühen Neuzeit / Travail et famille en Europe du Nord-Ouest au bas Moyen Âge et à l’époque moderne edited by Audrey Dauchy and Laila Scheuch, Frankfurt am Main, Vittorio Klostermann, 2023, 213 pp., € 69.00 (pbk), ISBN 978-3-465-04602-8) (Anna Bellavitis & Siglinde Clementi)
  DOI 10.1080/2049677X.2024.2349856
• Intervention and state sovereignty in Central Europe, 1500–1780 by Patrick Milton, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2022, 320 pp., £ 90,00 (hbk), ISBN 978-0192871183 (Stephan Wendehorst)
  DOI 10.1080/2049677X.2024.2349846
• Le danze di Clio e Astrea. Fondamenti storici del diritto europeo by Aldo Andrea Cassi, Romano Ferrari Zumbini, Michele Rosboch, Giuseppe Speciale, Chiara Valsecchi, edited by Aldo Andrea Cassi, multimedia project by Alan Sandonà, Turin, Giappichelli, 2023, XVI + 558 pp, 49€, ISBN/EAN 979-12-211-0066-2 (Dante Fedele)
  DOI 10.1080/2049677X.2024.2349848
• The jury: a very short introduction by Renée Lettow Lerner, New York, Oxford University Press, 2023, 160 pp., £8.99 (pbk), ISBN 978-0-190-92391-4 (Sylvain Soleil)
  DOI 10.1080/2049677X.2024.2349855
• The ideal river: how control of nature shaped the international order by Joanne Yao, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2022, 264 pp, £85.00 (hbk), ISBN 978-1526154385 (Jan-Henrik Meyer)
  DOI 10.1080/2049677X.2024.2349847
• The Routledge handbook of public taxation in medieval Europe edited by Denis Menjot, Mathieu Caesar, Florent Garnier, and Pere Verdés Pijuan, London and New York, Routledge, 2023, XIV + 497 pp., £150 (hbk), ISBN 978-0-367-90336-7 (by Jane Frecknall-Hughes)
  DOI 10.1080/2049677X.2024.2349854
• We, the King. Creating royal legislation in the sixteenth century Spanish New World (by Adrian Masters, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2023, 342 pp., $110 (hbk), ISBN 978-1009315418) (Alejandro Agüero)
  DOI 10.1080/2049677X.2024.2349857

Read the whole issue here.

CALL FOR PAPERS: Lotus at 100. Inaugural Workshop 2024 (Lund: University of Lund, 9-10 JAN 2025) (DEADLINE 4 OCT 2024)

 

(image source: studyinsweden)

Author conferences in Marseille, Istanbul and The Hague: 2025-2026

Discussed and dismissed, celebrated and critiqued, the Case of the S.S. “Lotus” has inspired controversial debates ever since it was decided by Max Huber’s presidential casting vote in 1927. As we approach the centenary of the Lotus Case in 2027, we invite reflections on the legacy of the decision and the principle it stands for. Our aim is to discuss the historical significance of the case, assess the impact it had on the theory and practice of international law and to consider its contemporary significance.

Subject to the availability of funding, we would like to hold these Lotus-related conversations at the three places most closely associated with the ship: Marseille (the homeport), Istanbul (the site of the Turkish proceedings triggering the PCIJ case) and The Hague (the seat of the PCIJ). The specific dates for these workshops will be agreed upon among the participants following the inaugural workshop on 9-10 January.

We are aiming to publish the papers presented at these workshops / conferences either as an edited collection or as a special journal issue. The detailed arrangements in this regard will be communicated to the participants of the inaugural workshop as soon as they become available.

Possible themes that papers could explore include:

• Context: The historical and geographic settings, the domestic proceedings in Turkey, the newly established league and the PCIJ, the emergence of the rule-based international order…

• Actors: The court’s president, the judges and their various opinions; the Turkish and French counsel; the persons often forgotten – the sailors of the Bozkurt; the passengers on the Lotus…

• Substantive aspects: jurisdiction; law of the sea; the Lotus Principle, the consent-based international legal order…

• Legacy: Legacy in Turkey, in France, in international law more generally…

• We also welcome papers and proposals related to any other aspect of the decision…

Abstracts of no more than 300 words should be submitted by 4 October 2024 to Valentin Jeutner at: submissions@lotus-100.com. For the inaugural workshop (Lund/online), accepted participants are asked to prepare short working papers (ca. 1000-2000 words) setting out initial ideas / proposed approaches to questions related to the Lotus Case.

If you would like to join the Lotus-project’s email list and receive updates about further events planned in connection with the anniversary, please let us know by e-mailing: news@lotus-100.com

Read more  here.

JOURNAL: Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales LXXVII (2023), nr. 4 (Dec)

 

(image source: Cambridge Core)

The journal Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales published several issues of interest to legal historians

Articles

Enfermement et graffiti Des palimpsestes de prison aux archives murales (note critique) (Guillaume Calafat)
DOI  10.1017/ahss.2024.4

Abstract:

In the early 2000s, restoration work on the building that housed Palermo’s Inquisition prisons during the early modern period revealed an impressive series of graffiti and prompted their historical study. In Del Santo Uffizio in Sicilia e delle sue carceri, Giovanna Fiume offers a rich synthesis of the individual and collaborative work she has devoted to these “mural archives” of the Palermo court. Bringing together the procedural and material history of incarceration, she succeeds in identifying the possible authors of the inscriptions and drawings that line the cell walls. In so doing, she sheds light on the trajectories of prisoners and their experiences of imprisonment, often passed over in silence by legal sources. These graffiti thus offer a new layer of documentation that broadens our understanding of the Inquisition’s judicial, penal, and carceral systems. More broadly, Fiume’s work is part of a flourishing strand of recent research dedicated to prisons and graffiti, at the confluence of literary studies, anthropology, and art history, which is interested in both the patrimonial and scholarly dimensions of these graphic marks and their aesthetic and ethnographic aspects. In offering a brief overview of the field, this review article aims to suggest some methodological and historiographical avenues for documenting social and intellectual life inside prisons.

« Dans les rues, on ne voit que des musulmans ! » Esclavage délié et appartenance urbaine en Méditerranée espagnole aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles (Thomas Glesener & Daniel Hershenzon) 
DOI 10.1017/ahss.2024.3
Abstract:

In 1717, an anonymous petition to the King of Spain expressed concern about the excessive number of Muslims living in Cartagena (Murcia). This complaint prompted the Council of Castile to launch a survey of the Muslim population with the aim of clarifying their status. In addition to galley slaves, the inquiry focused in particular on libertinos, a little-known category of slaves who lived and worked freely in the city but were heavily indebted to their masters because of the sums owed for their ransom. This article reconstructs the condition of these unbound slaves, who lived apart from their masters’ households, and the tensions this provoked between competing systems of norms. On the one hand, the right of slaves to work to finance their own redemption, and that of their masters to live off the rents imposed on them, were deeply rooted in local custom. On the other, rising insecurity along the coast prompted local authorities and the Crown to restrict these overlapping rights by forcing masters to keep their slaves at home. At stake in this conflict between different slavery regimes, the one based on local law and the other on royal jurisdiction, were slaves’ access to the labor market and their right to free residency and the protections afforded by contract law. Finally, by placing the inquiry itself at the heart of the study, the article investigates the meaning of a procedure that was less a demographic enumeration of slaves than a redistribution of rights to the city among its Muslim inhabitants.

 Book reviews

• Sinclair Bell et Teresa Ramsby (dir.) Free at Last! The Impact of Freed Slaves on the Roman Empire Londres, Bristol Classical Press, 2012, 212 p. (by Marianne Beraud)
  DOI 10.1017/ahss.2024.5
  
• Craig Perry et al. (dir.) The Cambridge World History of Slavery, vol. 2, AD 500-AD 1420, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2021, 708 p. (by Jean-Claude Hoquet)
  DOI 10.1017/ahss.2024.6
• Hannah Barker That Most Precious Merchandise: The Mediterranean Trade in Black Sea Slaves, 1260-1500 Philadelphie, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019, 328 p. (by Jean-Claude Hoquet)
  DOI 10.1017/ahss.2024.7
• Meredith Martin et Gillian Weiss Le Roi-Soleil en mer. Art maritime et galériens dans la France de Louis XIV, Paris, Éd. de l’EHESS, trad. par É. Trogrlic, 2022, 403 p. (by M'hamed Oualdi)
  DOI 10.1017/ahss.2024.8
• Fabienne P. Guillén et Roser Salicrú i Lluch Ser y vivir esclavo. Identidad, aculturación y agency (mundos mediterráneos y atlánticos, siglos XIII-XVIII), Madrid, Casa de Velázquez, 2021, 290 p. (by José Antonio Martínez Torres)
  DOI 10.1017/ahss.2024.9
• Jean-Frédéric Schaub et Silvia Sebastiani Race et histoire dans les sociétés occidentales, XVe-XVIIIe siècle, Paris, Albin Michel, 2021, 504 p. (by Domitille de Gavriloff)
  DOI 10.1017/ahss.2024.10
• Daniel Nemser Infrastructures of Race: Concentration and Biopolitics in Colonial Mexico Austin, University of Texas Press, 2017, 221 p. (by Guillaume Gaudin)
  DOI 10.1017/ahss.2024.11
• Jennifer L. Palmer Intimate Bonds: Family and Slavery in the French Atlantic Philadelphie, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016, 280 p. (by Olivier Caudron)
  DOI 10.1017/ahss.2024.13
• Christine Walker Jamaica Ladies: Female Slaveholders and the Creation of Britain’s Atlantic Empire Williamsburg/Chapel Hill, Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture/University of North Carolina Press, 2020, 317 p. (by Cécile Vidal)
  DOI 10.1017/ahss.2024.15
• Manuel Covo Entrepôt of Revolutions: Saint-Domingue, Commercial Sovereignty, and the French-American Alliance New York, Oxford University Press, 2022, XI + 304 p. (by Éric Roulet)
  DOI 10.1017/ahss.2024.16
• Hebe Mattos Les couleurs du silence. Esclavage et liberté dans le Brésil du XIXe siècle trad. par A. Fléchet, Paris/Aubervilliers, Khartala/CIRESC, [1995] 2019, 359 p. (by Aurélia Michel) DOI 10.1017/ahss.2024.21
• Tyler Stovall White Freedom: The Racial History of an Idea Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2021, 436 p. (by Jean-Luc Bonniol)
  DOI 10.1017/ahss.2024.22

Read the issue on Cambridge Core.

 

BOOK: Aurore CAUSIN, Penser le droit de la succession royale par les lois fondamentales (1661-1717) [Bibliothèque de l'IRJS - André Tunc, vol. 127] (Paris: IRJS Éditions, 2023), 480 p. ISBN 9782850020605, € 42

 

(image source: Paris 1)

Abstract:

Cette thèse propose de replacer la notion de loi fondamentale au coeur des argumentations relatives à la défense de la succession royale, en tenant compte des récentes perspectives de recherche développées en histoire du droit, spécialement l’histoire de la pensée juridique. À travers trois événements du gouvernement personnel de Louis XIV (la signature du traité de Montmartre, les négociations d’Utrecht et l’habilitation à succéder accordée aux princes légitimés), les lois fondamentales intègrent des argumentations marquées du sceau de la pensée juridique moderne. Si le xviiixviiiee siècle voit se développer la notion de constitution, les accents jusnaturalistes de la pensée juridique ne sont pas estompés. En mobilisant les lois fondamentales, pamphlétaires, ambassadeurs, princes du sang ou légitimés convoquent une certaine représentation de l’ordre de la succession royale et de l’État. Ces travaux étudient les lois fondamentales dans la pensée juridique de leur époque. C’est donc la dynamique interne de leur invocation qui a été étudiée, avec ses tâtonnements, ses hésitations et les invocations d’une notion qui contribuent à transformer plus largement le droit de la succession royale. Ces travaux n’écartent pas les références à la nature employées par les auteurs et présupposent la logique interne d’argumentations portant sur le droit de la succession royale bien que n’ayant pas toujours recours aux lois fondamentales. Les argumentations déployées portent avant tout sur la défense du droit de la succession royale et non exclusivement sur la défense des lois fondamentales. À travers l’analyse terminologique réalisée, il apparaît que le droit de la succession royale se défend plus qu’il ne s’impose et la mise en avant d’une expression (droit de naissance, droit du sang) sur une autre contribue à la transformation interne d’un droit que les textes laissent apparaître comme inviolable. Les lois fondamentales, éléments naturels de la succession royale et lois naturelles de l’État, placées à la croisée du droit du sang et du droit de naissance, traduisent finalement la préoccupation qu’ont les auteurs pour la conservation de l’État.

 Read more here.

BOOK: Ian WARD, The Reformation of the Constitution. Law, Culture and Conflict in Jacobean England (Oxford: Hart, 2024), ISBN

 

(image source: Hart)

Abstract:

This book revisits one of the defining judicial engagements in English legal history. It provides a fresh account of the years 1606 to 1616 which witnessed a series of increasingly volatile confrontations between, on the one side, King James I and his Attorney-General, Sir Francis Bacon, and on the other, Sir Edward Coke, successively Chief Justice of Common Pleas and Lord Chief Justice. At the heart of the dispute were differing opinions regarding the nature of kingship and the reach of prerogative in reformation England. Appreciating the longer context, in the summer of 1616 King James appealed for a reformation of law and constitution to complement the reformation of his Church. Later historians would discern in these debates the seeding of a century of revolution, followed by another four centuries of reform. This book ventures the further thought that the arguments which echoed around Westminster Hall in the first years of the seventeenth century have lost little of their resonance half a millennium on. Breaks with Rome are little easier to 'get done', the margins of executive governance little easier to draw.

Table of contents:

Introduction: Irony and Rhyme 1. Reformation 2. The Aspirations of James Stuart 3. The Casebook of Sir Edward Coke 4. The Lives of Francis Bacon 5. Apotheoses Epilogue

 Read more here.

JOURNAL: Book reviews in The English Historical Review (CXXXIX (2024), nr. 596)

 

(image source: Oxford Journals)

The English Historical Review published several legal history-relevant book reviews in its 596th issue (February 2024):

• Kings as Judges: Power, Justice, and the Origins of Parliaments, by Deborah Boucouyannis (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press,  2021; pp.  386. £29.99) (by John Watts)
  DOI 10.1093/ehr/ceae007
• Republics of Difference: Religious and Racial Self-Governance in the Spanish Atlantic World, by Karen B. Graubart (New York:  Oxford University Press,  2022; pp.  320. £64).
  DOI 10.1093/ehr/ceae013
• The Madman and the Church Robber: Law and Conflict in Early Modern England, by Jason Peacey (Oxford:  Oxford University Press,  2022; pp.  xvi + 295. £35).
  DOI 10.1093/ehr/ceae053

Read more with Oxford Journals.