Ettore Majorana
Foundation and Centre for Scientific Culture
International School of Ius Commune
Direttori della Scuola: M. Bellomo – K.
Pennington – O. Condorelli
33rd Course, Erice,
5-11 october 2013
Social crisis and science of law in medieval and modern world
Director of the 33rd Course
Andrea Padovani
(Università di Bologna)
Sponsored by: The
Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research – Sicilian Regional
Government – Catholic
University of America, Washington D.C. – University of Catania –Fondazione
Cassa di Risparmio di Imola – Fondazione CEUR, Bologna
Purpose
Human history fluctuates unceasingly between
two opposite poles: violence and disorder on one side, and demands for
settlement and peace on the other: that is a quest for rules, establishing
uniformity and predictability for social behaviors. Between the two poles, a
lawless society (anomia) and an order
established by a legal system, there is embedded a combat between a stubborn
defense of antiquated privileges and new claims of freedom. This struggle
occurred again and again in European society from the time of Irnerius at the
beginning of the twelfth century in different contexts and with different
problems that jurists were asked to resolve. When confronted with these issues,
from time to time the jurists wisely imposed limits on human behavior with the
imposition of norms from positive law or from higher norms such as natural law.
They imposed the ‘dogmata iuris’ to regulate the spontaneous but disordered
emerging of vigorous new energies that were then adopted for common good of
society.
Lecturers and topics
