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30 May 2025

BOOK: Dolores FREDA, Mario PICCININI, Heikki PIHLAJAMÄKI & Chiara Maria VALSECCHI (eds.), Borders of the Early Modern Ius Commune. England, Venice and Scandinavia [Routledge Studies in Comparative Legal History, eds. Aniceto MASFERRER DOMINGO & Heikki PIHLAJAMÄKI] (London: Routledge, 2025), 366 p. ISBN 9781032535845, 116 GBP

 

(image source: Routledge)

Abstract:
The culture of the ius commune has been a unifying element of European and Western legal civilization. As shown by several recent studies, the influence of ius commune extended much further than its traditional core area. This volume discusses the expansion and changes of ius commune in three significant corners of Europe, which in the classical narrative either totally or partially were left out of the picture: England, Scandinavia, and Venice. The study goes beyond the traditional question of the influence of ius commune in comparing the different constellations of normativity and legal pluralism in these regions. It investigates how not only ius commune but also other forms of normativity – such as customary law, written norms, and legal practice – were used and applied, and how they circulated. The approach helps create new narratives as to how the relationship between centers and peripheries in Europe evolved in the early modern period. These new narratives are built from bottom to top; thus, based on concrete source information, and focusing on the learned legal systems and their connection to the local legal sources. The collection further looks into the circulation of professors and doctors, students, and legal texts, starting from the idea that a theoretical understanding of the forms of normativity can only emerge through concrete, multidisciplinary research recognizing the tensions between global legal unification and differentiation. The book will be essential reading for researchers and academics in Legal History, Law and Religion, Comparative Legal Studies and Early Modern History.

Table of contents:

1.      Borders of ius communeius commune at the Borders

 

Dolores Freda, Mario Piccinini, Heikki Pihlajamäki, and Chiara Maria Valsecchi

 

PART I: IUS COMMUNE AND VENICE

 

2. Lawyers in Venice: A Curious Business

Silvia Gasparini

 

3. “Negari tamen non potest Venetos ius civile romanorum colere et venerari”: Venetian Law and ius commune between the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centurie

Claudia Passarella

 

4. Students, Graduates, or “Tourists”: Scholars from across the Borders in Padua in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth centuries

Donato Gallo

 

5. Venetian Law and ius commune: The Origins of a Controversy

Alfredo Viggiano

 

PART II: IUS COMMUNE AND ENGLAND

 

6. The Invisible Border between ius commune and Common Law: Traditional Interpretations and New Prospects

Dolores Freda

 

7. Legal Pluralism in the Law Courts of Early–Modern England

John Baker

 

8. Roman Law in Sixteenth-Century England: Professor Thomas Smith

David Ibbetson

 

9. Common Lawyers and Civilian Lawyers in England: Barriers and Connections

R. H. Helmholz

 

10. Gerard Malynes and the Ancient Law-Merchant: A View on the ius commune from the Borders

Stefania Gialdroni

 

PART III: IUS COMMUNE AND SCANDINAVIA

 

11.       Ius commune at the Merchant Courts of the Hanse Kontor in Bergen?

Sören Koch

 

12. The Emergence of the Profession of Procurators in Early Modern Denmark

Per Andersen

 

13. Adjusting the ius commune: The Swedish Legal Procedure in the Early Modern Period

Heikki Pihlajamäki

 

14. The Reception of the ius commune through German Law in Reformation Sweden (ca. 1530–1610): Torture, Police and Crime

Mia Korpiola

 

EPILOGUE

 

15. Re-reading Arthur Duck: Ius commune and Insular Exceptionalism

Mario Piccinini and Chiara Valsecchi

 On the editors:

Dolores Freda is Professor of Legal History in the University "Federico II" of Naples, Italy. Mario Piccinini has been Professor of Legal History at the University of Padua and is currently Senior Scholar at the same institution. Heikki Pihlajamäki is Professor of Comparative Legal History and currently Academy Professor in the University of Helsinki Chiara Maria Valsecchi is tenured Professor of Medieval and Modern Legal History in the University of Padua.

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