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Jaromír Tauchen: Mehr als hundert Jahre Rechtsgeschichte in
Brünn: Entwicklung, Tradition und wissenschaftliches Profil an der
Juristischen Fakultät der Masaryk-Universität
This article traces more than a century of legal-historical scholarship
and teaching at the Faculty of Law in Brno, from the founding of Masaryk
University in 1919 to the present (1919–2025). It examines the
institutional role of legal history within the curriculum, the
methodological self-understanding of the discipline, and the contribution
of key individuals who shaped its academic profile. Special attention is
paid to the major political and institutional ruptures that repeatedly
disrupted the faculty’s existence and reorganized its scholarly priorities
– most notably the closure of Czech universities in 1939, the abolition of
the Brno Faculty of Law in 1950, its re-establishment in 1969, and the
post-1989 transformation of higher education. The study argues that,
despite profound discontinuities at the institutional level, a distinctive
Brno tradition of legal history persisted through personal, intellectual,
and scholarly continuities carried by successive generations of teachers
and researchers, often outside the university framework. In the post-1989
era, the Brno department maintained a strong position of legal-historical
disciplines in the curriculum while simultaneously expanding its thematic
scope toward modern and contemporary legal history, including developments
after 1989, supported by new teaching materials and a broadened
international network.
Georg W. Oesterdiekhoff: World History of Law and
Psychological Stages
The article analyses ancient or archaic systems of law and
jurisprudence, feud and vendetta, the judicial systems of evidence such as
judicial combats, oaths, ordeals, and torture, the objective responsibility
in form of trials against animals and corpses, collective punishment and
ignorance of intention, and the brutal-sadistic patterns of the criminal
law. These structures pervaded law and jurisprudence right across
continents and times, being replaced by rational and humane systems only in
consequence of higher stages of civilization. The discipline history itself
has not the means to explain both the omnipresence of these archaic
patterns in the premodern world and the emergence of the rational systems
in recent centuries. Developmental psychology can evidence that these
ancient or archaic patterns are inevitable manifestations of the
preoperational stage, while the civilized patterns emerge from the
adolescent stage of formal operations. Stage theory, relying on
developmental psychology, is crucial to the explanation of the world
history of culture, sciences, politics, law, morals, arts, and religion. It
is advancement of the human being itself that has caused this historical
transformation. Stage theory can describe both the advancement of the human
being and that of culture, too. The history of law exemplifies this idea
perfectly.
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Robert von Lucius: Ernst Reibstein: der fast
vergessene Völkerrechtshistoriker
Ernst Reibstein (1901–1966) had published a much lauded
book on the history of international law, but in an unconventional way.
On 1400 pages he described the „spirit of international relations“
based on historic, economic and cultural influences. He referred to
studies of many important legal historians of the 16th century, i.a.
from medieval Spain. Far sighted, he wrote early on the law of the sea,
and on Afro-Marxism. Reibstein could include practical experiences from
international conferences thanks to being a journalist, a diplomatic
correspondent in Switzerland, in the first half of his life. Then he
turned, also unusual, to become a respected private scholar.
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Vid Žepič: Probatio diabolica – On the
Origins of the Term
The article begins by outlining the problem of the
burden of proof in Roman property disputes, focusing on rei vindicatio
and the actio Publiciana in rem. According to established Roman
doctrine, a plaintiff seeking to recover property through rei vindicatio
bore the burden of proving ownership. In cases of derivative
acquisition, this meant showing an unbroken and legitimate sequence of transfers,
confirming that each previous holder had lawfully acquired the property
from his predecessor, all the way back to the original acquisition.
This evidentiary burden, though ostensibly alleviated by the actio
Publiciana, came to be characterised as probatio diabolica. Contrary to
the dominant view that locates the term’s origins in Accursius’ Glossa
Ordinaria, the article proposes that its true source lies in the late
medieval literary genre of “Satanic lawsuits.” This literature is
rooted in the patristic ransom theory of atonement, which held that
Christ redeemed humanity from the dominion of the devil through his
death. The paper follows this narrative from early portrayals of the
devil, as plaintiff, asserting dominion over humankind – cast as
defendant and represented by the Virgin Mary – to the more procedurally
plausible and juridically elaborate accounts of the processus Belial,
in which Satan prosecutes Christ over the possession of humankind, now
transformed from defendant into the very object of the dispute. Both
strands of this tradition turn upon the dualism of possessorium and
petitorium, while the theologically scripted “trials,” in which Satan
was destined to lose, supplied the metaphorical groundwork for what
later came to be understood as diabolical proof.
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Daniela Buccomino: Jurisdiction on Trial:
Law, Morality, and Power in Late Medieval Italy. The Domodossola
Case (1318–1321)
The trial between Bishop-Count Uguccione Borromei
and the universitas of Domodossola (1318–1321) illustrates the
juridical and ideological tensions at the heart of late medieval
political authority. Ostensibly a dispute over jurisdiction, it
became a confrontation over legitimacy, where charges of adultery
and usury were deployed to delegitimize communal autonomy. The
bishop’s strategy relied on constructing collective guilt, turning
individual transgressions into evidence of institutional corruption
and incapacity for self-government. The universitas, in turn,
defended its legal identity through the election of magistrates,
entrenched customs, and autonomous jurisdiction, while balancing
affirmation of autonomy with formal concessions to episcopal
authority. The case highlights the performative power of legal
language in shaping political subjectivity. Far from a fixed order,
medieval jurisdiction appears as a negotiated process, continuously
contested and redefined. The Domodossola trial thus exposes both
the fragility and resilience of communal autonomy within the
broader framework of ecclesiastical power.
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Georgia Chioni: Post-Byzantine Privileged
Legal Regime During Turkish Dominance: The Paradigm of the
‘Non-Spearfallen’ (me doryalote) Island of Thassos
This study explores the legal and administrative
status of the island of Thassos under Ottoman rule, focusing on its
unique designation as a “non spear-fallen” (me doryalote) community
– i.e., one that surrendered peacefully rather than through
military conquest. This designation served as the legal basis for a
distinctive regime of local autonomy, characterized by exemptions
from taxation, administrative oversight, and judicial
subordination. Unlike most regions in the Greek world, Thassos
maintained a notable degree of self-governance throughout the
Ottoman period. Drawing on historical sources and archival
documents, this study highlights the broader legal and political
implications of Thassos’s privileged status. It argues that the
island’s post-Byzantine privileges represent a form of
proto-constitutional localism and offer valuable insight into the
premodern roots of modern Greek legal and administrative
structures.
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Theodore Kazazakis: Custody of
Children after Divorce in Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Law
From Roman to post-Byzantine law, the regulation
of child custody after divorce evolved from strict paternal
control (patria potestas) toward a system based on parental
fault and child welfare. Initially, Roman law favored the
father, but by the second century CE, courts began awarding
custody to the morally fit parent, including mothers. Under
Justinian, custody was granted to the innocent spouse, with
added conditions for mothers, such as not remarrying. This
principle was preserved in late Byzantine texts like the
Hexabiblos and Syntagma, and carried into post-Byzantine
jurisprudence through the Nomikon and Nomikon Procheiron.
?cclesiastical courts continued applying these norms,
influenced by age, religion, and remarriage. Following the
Greek War of Independence, the same fault-based, child-focused
approach laid the foundation for modern Greek family law.
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Pierre de Gioia-Carabellese, Camilla Della
Giustina: Bankers, Privacy and Arcana Imperii: A
Historical Law Perspective
The topic of this research paper investigates the
historical interplay between bankers, privacy, and arcana imperii
(the secrets of statecraft) from a legal point of view, focusing on
early modern Europe. It argues that not only were bankers pivotal
in shaping the financial and political landscape of monarchies, but
also, they acted as guardians of sensitive information. This
enabled the sovereign to oversee the economic resources and their
utilisation. The research highlights that the role of bankers -
from Italian city-states to the rise of Swiss banking secrecy,
English common law confidentiality, and American privacy doctrines
- has always been fixed on the protection of both individual
autonomy and state secrets. Moreover, in reading privacy as the
management of the “presence”, due to its nature as a spatial and institutional
concept, as well as through the case study of the Spanish Habsburgs
(within their codification of royal space), the contribution
demonstrates how both financial stability and the protection of
arcana imperii were intertwined with each other. Between these
different poles, bankers acted as the facilitators and the masters
of this complex infrastructure.
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Carlos Sardinha: Die Gründung eines
absolutistischen Staates in Schweden im 17. Jh.: Eine
verfassungsgeschichtliche Untersuchung zum politischen
Humanismus des Justus Lipsius (1547–1606) und zur
humanistischen Staatskunst The article examines the constitutional
development of seventeenth-century Sweden through the lens of
the Neostoic political philosophy of Justus Lipsius
(1547–1606). It demonstrates that Lipsius’s political thought
significantly influenced the education of King Gustav II Adolf
and Queen Christina, as well as academic teaching at the
University of Uppsala. The study analyses the role of
Neostoicism in shaping Swedish concepts of statehood, political
authority, and constitutional order. Particular attention is
paid to the relationship between raison d'état, Natural Law,
and the ethical limits of political power. The article
discusses Lipsius’s theory of political prudence and his
distinction between minor, medium, and major forms of political
fraud. It argues that Lipsius advocated a moderate form of
absolutism that rejected Jean Bodin’s concept of unlimited
sovereignty. The paper further explores the importance of
military power and discipline as essential elements of state
governance, while emphasizing their ethical justification
through Neostoicism. The Swedish Form of Government of 1634 is
interpreted as establishing a mixed monarchy based on a
constitutional balance between the King, the Royal Council, and
the Estates. Finally, the article analyses the constitutional
consequences of the Riksdag of 1680, which introduced the
doctrine of the divine right of kings and laid the foundations
of Swedish absolutism. The study concludes that Lipsian
political humanism played a significant role in the formation
of the Swedish early modern state and its constitutional
tradition.
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Miroslav Fico, Ján Štefanica: The
Draft of the Code of Criminal Procedure of 1929 and Its Place
in the Process of Unifying Criminal Law in the Interwar
Czechoslovak Republic
The article analyses the process of drafting the
unified Code of Criminal Procedure in interwar Czechoslovakia,
with particular emphasis on the Outline of the Code of Criminal
Procedure from 1929 and its role in the broader efforts to
unify criminal procedural law following the establishment of
the Czechoslovak Republic. After 1918, Czechoslovakia faced a
situation of legal dualism, as Austrian procedural regulations
continued to apply in the Czech lands, while Hungarian
legislation remained in force in Slovakia and Subcarpathian
Ruthenia. This fragmented legal system created strong pressure
for codification and legal unification consistent with the
unitary character of the new state. The study focuses primarily
on the institutional and legislative processes connected with
the preparation of the 1929 outline, the work of expert
commissions, the interministerial consultation procedure, and
the subsequent revision stages conducted between 1929 and 1930.
The study is based primarily on archival materials from the
National Archives in Prague, ministerial records, and
contemporary legal literature.
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Damian Szczepaniak: The Individual
in Interaction with the State Apparatus in the Perspective
of the Penal Law of the Second Polish Republic: Remarks on
Coercing a Public Official to Undertake or Desist from an
Official Act
The paper is devoted to the offence of
coercing a public official to undertake or desist from an
official act in the Second Polish Republic. This offence
closely related to the resistance to authority and
constituted one of the specific offences that an individual
could commit while interacting with the state apparatus.
Its particular significance lay in the fact that it was not
so much about hindering the performance of duties or
influencing the content of official acts, but rather about
the very existence of those act. Moreover, it was, after
the insult to the authorities and their representatives,
the most frequently committed crime against the authorities
in the Second Polish Republic. The article presents the legal
status composed of regulations from post-partition criminal
codes in force in the Second Polish Republic: the Austrian
code (1852), the German code (1871), the Russian code
(1903), and the Polish code (1932), as well as the views of
jurisprudence and doctrine. In addition, the practice of
applying the provisions of the 1932 Penal Code related to
the subject offence by the Regional Court in Kraków during
the interwar period has been analysed. The source material,
apart from printed sources in the form of normative acts or
court rulings, consists of the case files of the Regional
Court in Kraków from 1932-1939, stored in the National
Archives in Kraków. The methods used in the research:
historical, dogmatic, comparative, and empirical methods.
Pavel Salák: Same Law or Same
Solution? Treasure-Trove in Roman and Jewish Law in the 1st
Century BC and the 1st Century CE For the period around the turn of the era,
virtually no legal sources of Roman law addressing
ownership rights to the discovery of treasure have
survived. On the other hand, several non-legal sources
exist that mention the finding of treasure. Among these,
two texts stand out for their strikingly similar content –
the passage from Horace’s Satires and one of the parables
in the Gospel of Matthew. The article deals with the
question of the legal relevance of these non-legal sources.
This concerns in particular the text of Matthew, where it
is not entirely clear whether it reflects Roman law or,
conversely, local customary law. Unfortunately, legal
sources towards the end of the Second Temple period are
very scarce and later sources approach the issue somewhat
differently. Nevertheless, local custom seems more likely
than the application of Roman law.
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István László Mészáros:
Interpretation and Practice of the Right of Resistance
in the Vetus Testamentum and the Novum
Testamentum This study shows that the right to
resist tyranny has deep biblical roots. It derives
directly from the biblical principle of the primacy and
supremacy of divine and natural law, reflecting
universal divine eternal order and justice. From the
fact that even public authority is subject to these
laws and that, in the event of a conflict with such
laws, man-made laws and authority cannot claim
obedience. In this case, resistance to them is not only
a right but also a conscientious duty. This paper
provides a broad outline of the biblical principles
that underpin resistance to tyranny. It then describes
some of the cases of resistance in the books of the Old
and New Testaments which, among many others, have been
recurring in the works of the leading authors on the
right of resistance throughout European history.
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Gergely Deli: Did it Come
in Handy? Factors Helping the Spread of
Christianity in the Roman Empire The main argument of this paper is
that at the turn of the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD,
three important changes took place in Roman society
which pointed in new directions that were congruent
with some of the characteristics of Christianity.
On the one hand, a new need for a universal system
of social norms emerged in the imperial
administration. On the other hand, traditional and
retrospective Roman morality was being replaced by
a more future-oriented moral narrative. The third
major change was the emergence of a profane,
political version of messianic expectations. This
triple need for a universal moral order, faith in
the future, and a messianic attitude embodied by
the emperor, was so strong that it made reform
attempts inevitable in the legislation and
organisation of the state. It is worth reflecting
on these factors, as they bring to light new
considerations that have received less attention
until now, but nonetheless facilitated the general
acceptance of Christianity.
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Adam Boóc: Bemerkungen
über die Haftung des Schiedsrichters im
römischen Recht This study examines the origins
and legal nature of arbitrator liability in
Roman law. It focuses on the receptum arbitrii
– the arbitrator's declaration of acceptance –
as a central element of a pre-state arbitration
procedure based on voluntary agreement. The
study analyzes both the private law and
quasi-state aspects of Roman arbitration, in
particular its contractual structure and the
praetorian obligation to impose sanctions in
the event of breaches of duty. In doing so, it
highlights various dimensions of the meaning of
the term arbiter, from the role of the bonus
vir to that of the arbiter ex compromisso. The
historical development of the arbitrator
function is also traced in the context of the
canonical legal system, emphasizing the
continuity of Roman legal concepts. Finally, it
is shown how the Roman model of arbitration has
influenced modern regulations, in particular
with regard to the liability and
decision-making obligation of the arbitrator.
Pál Sáry: The Trials
of Aulus Gabinius In the autumn of 54 BC, Aulus
Gabinius was charged before three different
jury courts. The charges of crimen maiestatis
and crimen repetundarum were linked to the fact
that Gabinius had invaded Egypt with his army
as a proconsul of Syria and restored Ptolemy
Auletes to his throne. The third charge was
that Gabinius had committed crimen ambitus in
order to be elected consul. Gabinius was
acquitted of crimen maiestatis but found guilty
of crimen repetundarum. The charge of ambitus
was not investigated due to the accused’s
exile. In addition to examining the legal
issues, the paper outlines the political
background of these criminal cases, the
personal relationship of the accused with the
leading politicians of the time, the financial
interests of senators and knights, and the
emotions of the plebs. Meanwhile, the deep
corruption of the government and judicial
system of the late Roman Republic unfolds
before us.
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Anna Éva Tamási: Indictment
and Grand Jury Debates in Nineteenth
Century Hungary This paper analyses
indictment procedures in nineteenth-century
Hungary, focusing on debates over the
introduction of the grand jury. It examines
the stages of criminal procedural
codification and compares the grand jury
with the indictment chamber in a broader
European context. Drawing on primary
sources and contemporary legal opinions,
the study explains why, despite significant
support, the grand jury was ultimately
rejected. The main reasons included the
lack of domestic tradition, concerns about
legal expertise, financial costs, and the
specific social conditions of Hungary.
Instead, Hungarian legislators adopted the
indictment chamber as a more suitable
solution within the continental legal
system.
Zoltán Hautzinger:
International Historical Models of
Military Criminal Law Criminal law rules and
criminal justice solutions applicable
to soldiers, and within that, members
of the armed forces and other
organizations serving individual
states, have developed according to
different historical models. The value
of these historical examples lies in
how the specific criminal law rules
applicable to soldiers relate to
general criminal law rules and the
application of criminal law. The most
common approach is for military
criminal law to conform to the criminal
law rules applicable to everyone, if
there are no specific rules for
maintaining military order and
discipline. Military criminal law is
most specific when it is codified to
the exclusion of general criminal law
norms. After presenting the definition
of military criminal law, this study
aims to show the reader examples of the
application of military criminal law in
the legal systems of different
countries.
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Zoltán Petrovics: Termination
of an Employment Relationship by the
Employer in Pre-World War II Hungary,
with Particular Reference to the
Agricultural Sector
The study presents an
analysis of the evolution of Hungarian
law regulating the termination of
employment relationships by the
employer from the mid-19th century
until the end of World War II. The
paper examines the key elements of
protection against termination of
employment, including reasons,
substantive and formal requirements of termination,
and legal consequences of unlawful
termination. The evolution of legal
regulation also examined through the
lens of the employment relationship of
agricultural workers. In addition to
presenting the regulation, the study’s
particular aim is also to highlight the
specificities of the evolution from
status to contract and then from
contract to status in the context of
the regulation. The hypothesis posits
that the ‘status-like’ regulation of
the employment relationship constitutes
an essential element of labour law in
terms of protection against arbitrary
termination by the employer. The
research was based on a comprehensive
examination of primary and secondary
sources, including legislation, court
decisions, and legal literature.
Thomas Gergen:
Aspekte des Todes bei Jorge Luis Borges
(1899–1986) In 1986, the Argentine
writer Jorge Luis Borges passed away,
whose distinctive style and
multilingualism initiated a new
development in Hispanic
literature—indeed, in world literature
as a whole. This study of the aspects
of death, based on several cuentos by
Borges, is dedicated to the German
legal historian Elmar Wadle, who died
in 2025 and who engaged extensively
with the themes of death and inheritance
in both historical and contemporary
law.
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Fuad-Meša Čičić: The
Problematic of the Legis actio per
condictionem in Roman Law: A
Theoretical Perspective
| | This study addresses the
problem of the origins and function of
the legis actio per condictionem, a
procedural innovation introduced by the
lex Silia and later extended by the lex
Calpurnia. The central question
concerns whether this action was
designed merely as a procedural
alternative to existing forms, or
whether it pursued a substantive
purpose, namely, to provide legal
protection for informal pecuniary
transfers and analogous transactions
which, until then, lacked adequate
safeguards. On the basis of fragmentary
primary evidence (Gaius, the Digest,
Livy, Plautus) and legislative
landmarks (lex Silia, lex Calpurnia,
lex Aebutia), combined with doctrinal
analysis of concepts such as datio,
mutuum, dominium, and aes alienum, the
paper advances the thesis that this new
modus agendi was introduced as a restitutionary
action for money handed over
informally, whether as loan or for
another purpose, where the debtor had
no legal ground to retain it, bridging
a gap left by the rigidity of older
legis actiones. While the suggestion
that the action could also apply in
disputes involving peregrini remains
hypothetical, it is consistent with the
Roman practice of adapting earlier
procedures, such as the clarigatio and
the rerum repetitio, to new contexts.
Methodologically, the research employs
both historical-contextual and
legal-dogmatic approaches, correlating
the procedure’s abstract formula,
thirty-day interval, and limitation to
certa pecunia with its likely model in
older restitutionary procedures applied
to foreigners (status condictusque dies
cum hoste, clarigatio). Subsequent
statutory expansion through the lex
Calpurnia to omnis certa res extended
its range, making the condictio a
sanction for emergent real contracts,
before its scope was curtailed through
lex Aebutia and the juristic refinement
of datio into transfer of ownership.
Thus, the paper reconciles competing
theories by demonstrating that per
condictionem was both a functional
instrument securing restitution in an
increasingly monetized society and a
procedural innovation shaped by the
technical inheritance of the legis
actiones; in this dual capacity, it
represents a critical step toward the
later system of condictiones and offers
key insights into the interaction of
legislation, jurisprudential
development, and socio-economic
necessity in the evolution of Roman
private law.
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