CALL FOR PAPERS: Ius Commune Workshop on Comparative Legal History - Ius Commune in the Making: Failure and the Law (Leuven: KULeuven, 24 NOV 2026) [DEADLINE 15 AUG 2026]

 The 30th Ius Commune Conference will take place in Leuven (24-25 November 2026), and a Workshop will be devoted to “Failure and the Law.”

(image:  Carte particuliere de Brusselles, Louvain et de Vilvorden [Material cartográfico] door Lat, Jan de, fl. 1734-1750 - 1747 - Digital Library Real Academia de la Historia, Spain - Public Domain)

The workshops on “Comparative Legal History – Ius Commune in the Making” aim to reveal and understand the nature and effects of various legal formants in the development of law. Indeed, forces of legal formants are too often lost or hidden beneath a superficies of commonalities. History is a living laboratory. In the past, we explored the role of legal actors (2014), legal sources (2016), force of local laws (2017), methods and dynamics of law (2018), networks (2019), paradigmatic shifts (2020), great debates in the history of law (2021), the concept of innovation in law (2023), manifestations of nature in law (2024), and meaning in law (2025).

This Workshop is dedicated to the place of failure in the life of the law. Not every effort triggers a successful outcome, it should be noted. Efforts in the realm of the law are no exception, and endeavours may fail because of different reasons and at different stages. Failure should be considered a learning experience both for those who attempted to succeed and for those who might attempt in the future. Efforts should not always be considered success stories, yet they should always be considered tools for change and for the advancement of legal science. Thus all legal acting has the inherent capacity to profit from learned experiences, and one should even hold such is the duty of legal scholarship. Failure as a working definition means that a wilful act has not been received effectively, yet the qualification of an act as a failure in itself is profoundly normative as this takes its place in the fabric of legal debate.

The story of failure and success is therefore multi-layered. Failed attempts are omnipresent throughout history and can take different forms. Researchers are invited to explore in this Workshop examples of failed attempts to change or preserve the law as it is, be these, amongst others, legislative, judicial, doctrinal, educational. It may be a failure concerning the fabric of the law itself, as well as in the law’s interaction with the real world. Limitations can relate to several aspects, including the practical such as availability of time, access to (re)sources, flaws in argumentative lines, skills of the human resources involved. For example, Diocletian’s Edictum de Pretiis Rerum Venalium failed in 301 to stop inflation. The medieval feudal system, that failed to maintain personal ties of fealty but turned into a system hereditary rights of succession, eventually creating its own demise. Closer in time, private law codification efforts, such as early-nineteenth century attempts in the Low Countries, provided timely awareness on the merits and weaknesses of those corpora of the law in Europe and beyond. The invention, import or abolition of concepts, rules or methodologies which are considered (not) to fit well may be an illustrative area of research.

Comparative legal historians can benefit from an inventory of what went “wrong” in the selected failure in making or changing the law. This Workshop aims to take stock, inviting for papers that could serve as “logbooks” in that learning process, helping to document failure as it emerged. Awareness of working points can assist in attaining a quick catch-up, something that is recurrent in other sciences, where researchers need to avoid replicating failed exercises that may have taken place in other laboratories. Even when not all experiences may be considered successful, comparative legal history can evolve when failed experiences are assessed and reconsidered.

Senior researchers and PhD candidates are invited to submit an abstract of a paper related to the above-mentioned theme. Abstracts (max. 400 words) should be sent to Agustín Parise (agustin.parise@maastrichtuniversity.nl) no later than 15 August 2026. Shortly after that, the authors will be informed whether their papers are selected for a presentation during the Workshop. All contributions should be in English. Co-authored papers will be also considered. The organizing committee will give preference to early-career researchers when facing submissions of similar quality.

Researchers from within and outside the Ius Commune Research School will be eligible to present abstracts. Please also forward this call to colleagues who might be interested.

Should you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact a member of the organizing committee,

 

Harry Dondorp (j.h.dondorp@vu.nl)

Wouter Druwé (wouter.druwe@kuleuven.be)

Michael Milo (j.m.milo@uu.nl)

Pim Oosterhuis (janwillem.oosterhuis@maastrichtuniversity.nl)

Agustín Parise (agustin.parise@maastrichtuniversity.nl)

BOOK: Agustín CASAGRANDE, Constitución y Arbitrariedad. Conceptos e imaginarios del constitucionalismo argentino [Global Perspectives on Legal History, vol. 26, eds. Marietta AUER, Thomas DUVE & Stefan VOGENAUER] (Frankfurt am Main: Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory, 2025), 224 p., ISBN 978-3-944773-50-6, € 19,25

(image source: MPILHLT)

Abstract:

The discourse of constitutionalism emerged out of the entanglement of three strands: legal theory, political philosophy, and historical narratives. Its structure revolves around the tension between the counter-concepts (Gegenbegriffe) of arbitrariness (to be denounced) and constitution (to be legitimized). This book presents a threefold genealogical analysis to access the logic of Argentine constitutionalism. First, a conceptual history (Begriffsgeschichte) exposes the distance between recent narratives of the development of Argentine constitutionalism as constructed by political historians, on the one hand, and constitutional scientists, on the other. The second genealogy explores the theoretical rupture between modern law and the traditional knowledge of ius commune in the shift from arbitrium iuris to “legicentric” logic – that is, the preeminence of written law enacted by the state. The narrowing of the concept of arbitrium to arbitrariness was central to the formation of constitutional law’s conception of the political order. Finally, this rupture went hand-in-hand with the establishment of new political imaginaries, including autocratic caudillos, suggestible masas, anarchic tendencies of a people, etc. During the 19th century, these fueled the sense among the elites that a new order was needed; but they also still remain part of current narratives. Revealing these emotional imaginaries that guided, and continue to guide, constitutional practice enables a dialogue between the history of law as written by historians and as written by constitutionalists, with the purpose of understanding the recurrent crises that still afflict Argentine constitutionalism in the 21st century.

On the author:

Agustín E. Casagrande is Professor of Legal Sociology in the Law Faculty of UNLP and Professor of the History of Western Law in the School of Humanities of UNSAM.

Table of contents:

Introducción.
Antinomias del lenguaje constitucional

Primera Parte
Constitución: Teoría e historiografía jurídica

Capítulo I: Historia constitucional, historia conceptual. Genealogía epistemológica de la historia crítica del derecho

1. Historia jurídica de la historia constitucional (y su deriva conceptual)

2. Constitución y «orden concreto»: un nuevo modo de Begriffsbildung

3. Historia del derecho (modo crítico): antropologías e instituciones

4. Historia constitucional desde la historia crítica del derecho.

Capítulo II: ¿Antigua Constitución o Gobernanza Doméstica? Conceptos y categorías en la nueva historia político-constitucional Argentina

1. Ortopedia constitucional: función educativa del constitucionalismo argentino

2. Antigua Constitución e historiografía política

3. Gobernanza doméstica e historia jurídica crítica

4. Crítica y crisis del discurso constitucional histórico argentino

Segunda Parte: Arbitrariedad y Legalidad: Sistemática del derecho

Capítulo III: Una historia conceptual de la arbitrariedad. Aproximación a la sistemática jurídica (Siglos XVI–XX)

1. Arbitrium: concepto integrador del derecho en el mundo jurisdiccional

2. Del arbitrium a la arbitrariedad: legalidad y exterioridad

3. Arbitrariedad: entre sistemática y narrativa histórica

Capítulo IV: Legalidad y arbitrariedad. Aporía nomológica entre Constitución y Administración

1. Legalidad y arbitrariedad: contra-conceptos constitucionales

2. Naturaleza, filosofía, Constitución: génesis y lógica de la legalidad

3. Hacia una legalidad argentina: filosofía jurídica y constitucionalismo

4. Legalización del derecho y ley natural: seguridad de individuo, razón de ley

5. El "imperio de la ley": civilizando las pasiones

6. "Principio de Legalidad": Constitución y administración

7. Del "imperio" al "principio": la gubernamentalidad constitucional

Tercera Parte: Imaginarios: Historia Constitucional argentina

Capítulo V: La Nación, la Ley y la Historia. Fuentes del derecho constitucional argentino

1. La arbitrariedad en el derecho: hipótesis de lectura constitucional

2. Epiqueya y Arbitrio: la aplicación del derecho entre «casuismo y sistema»

3. El momento Sarmiento: estructura literaria de la arbitrariedad argentina

4. Mandones arbitrarios: los caudillos y las masas en la enseñanza constitucional

5. «Escenas de sangre»: un imaginario para el constitucionalismo argentino

Conclusiones: Constitucionalismo e imaginación histórica

Fuentes y bibliografía

1. Fuentes impresas

2. Bibliografía

Find more on: MPILHLT & epubli.

SEMINAR: “Old Enough to Marry? Age, Memory, and Delay in York Cause Paper E 23, 1332–33” (online, 24 JUN 2026)

 

(Image source: University of York Digital Collections, York Cause Papers, CP E 23/1)

On Wednesday, 24 June 2026, Matthew Cleary will present a paper entitled “Old Enough to Marry? Age, Memory, and Delay in York Cause Paper E 23, 1332–33” as part of the Centre for Ius Commune seminar series at Adam Mickiewicz University. The seminar will be held online on Wednesday, 24.06.2026 at 11 am CEST.

The paper examines Crane c. Draycote (York Cause Paper E 23, 1332–33), a matrimonial dispute that turned on questions of age, consent, memory, and delay. At the heart of the case was the validity of vows exchanged eight years earlier, when Alice Draycote and William Crane were in their early teens. Witnesses for Alice maintained that both parties had been fourteen when they exchanged verba de presenti, while William claimed that he had been only thirteen and had been coerced into the agreement.

When Alice sought a judgment years later, the court was required to determine whether a valid marriage had been formed and how the passage of time affected the parties’ claims. The case reveals how canon law demanded precise temporal reckoning while generating uncertainty when remembered and lived experiences of age, consent, and delay did not fit neatly within legal categories.

The seminar offers tan opportunity to discuss the paper before its presentation at the 2026 International Medieval Congress in Leeds. At the IMC, the paper will form part of Session 1133, “Medieval Canon Law, II: Marriage and Timing”, scheduled for Wednesday, 8 July 2026, from 11:15 AM to 12:45 PM. The session is sponsored by the Iuris Canonici Medii Aevi Consociatio / International Society of Medieval Canon Law (ICMAC).

Those interested in attending are invited to email Matthew Cleary at matthew.cleary@amu.edu.pl to receive the meeting link.

BOOK: Marek NOVÁK, Glossators and Commentators at the Strahov Library (Prague: Karolinum Press, 2025), 334 p., ISBN 978-80-246-6043-1

 

(image source: KP)

Abstract:

Private law in the Czech Republic, as in many countries, has its roots in Roman law, which reached its peak through codification by Emperor Justinian. However, modern civil codes are not directly based on Roman law source texts but on their later reception by medieval and modern jurists. This study aims to identify writings by authors belonging to the earliest stages of Roman law reception in the as-of-yet unsorted collection of the library of the Royal Canonry of Premonstratensians at Strahov. It discovers the works of glossators and commentators, analyses manuscripts, incunabula, and old prints and supplements the related data with examples of the used working methods. In addition, one of the results of the research was a set of proposals for correcting the library catalogue, which has already been implemented. The study therefore offers current shelf marks in alignment with the actual state of the collection and aims to serve as a practical guide for researchers interested in studying this segment of legal history.

Table of contents:

1. The beginnings of the reception of Roman law
2. Glossators
          2.1 Legal school
          2.2 Literary forms
                    2.2.1 Glossae
                    2.2.2 Summae
                    2.2.3 Tractatus
                    2.2.4 Quaestiones
                    2.2.5 Lecturae
                    2.2.6 Other forms
          2.3 Authors and writings at the Strahov Library
                    2.3.1 Accursius
                    2.3.2 Azo
                    2.3.3 Odofredus
                    2.3.4 Placentinus
                    2.3.5 Roffredus
 3. Commentators
          3.1 Legal school
          3.2 Literary forms
                    3.2.1 Commentaria
                    3.2.2 Tractatus
                    3.2.3 Consilia
                    3.2.4 Quaestiones disputatae
                    3.2.5 Repetitiones
                    3.2.6 Other forms
          3.3 Authors and writings at the Strahov Library
                    3.3.1 Accoltis Aretinus, Franciscus de
                    3.3.2 Bologninus, Ludovicus
                    3.3.3 Castro, Paulus de
                    3.3.4 Cumanus, Raphael Raymundus
                    3.3.5 Decius, Philippus
                    3.3.6 Fulgosius, Raphael
                    3.3.7 Gambilionibus, Angelus Aretinus de
                    3.3.8 Laudensis, Martinus Garratus
                    3.3.9 Mayno, Jason de
                    3.3.10 Mugellanus, Dinus de Rossonis
                    3.3.11 Penna, Lucas de
                    3.3.12 Pistorio, Cinus de Sigibuldis de
                    3.3.13 Pontanus, Ludovicus
                    3.3.14 Rosate, Albericus de
                    3.3.15 Salyceto, Bartholomaeus de
                    3.3.16 Sancto Petro, Florianus de
                    3.3.17 Saxoferrato, Bartolus de
                    3.3.18 Socinus, Bartholomaeus
                    3.3.19 Tartagnus, Alexander
                    3.3.20 Ubaldis, Angelus de

                    3.3.21 Ubaldis, Baldus de

Find more on Karolinum Press&The Chicago University Press.

SEMINAR: PetrIUS and Printed Canon Law Paratexts up to ca. 1600 (Poznań: Centre for Ius Commune, Adam Mickiewicz University, 24 FEB 2026 - 11:00 CET, online)

(Source: Liber extra, edition of Paris 1499, Basel University Library, Nn III 10)

The Centre for Ius Commune has been established at Adam Mickiewicz University to implement the ERC Starting Grant PetrIUS: Petrification of ius commune through printed paratexts led by Piotr Alexandrowicz. The project aims to trace the origins, evolution, and consolidation of marginalia (paratexts) added to printed editions of the Roman and canon law sources. By examining their variations and significance, the project will demonstrate how paratexts shaped the interpretation of Roman and canon law in the early modern period and determine whether the printed marginalia influenced the legal education and practice. More information on the project can be found here: link.

The Centre will also host events related to ongoing research and to broader topics concerning late medieval and early modern ius commune. In the first meeting Piotr Alexandrowicz will talk in general about the project and the first observations on the development of canon law printed paratexts. The meeting will be held on Tuesday, 24.02.2026 at 11 am CET. It will be organised in a hybrid format; to join online use the link to the MS Teams: link.

The Centre welcomes collaboration with scholars working on late medieval and early modern ius commune. If you want to learn more about the Centre or contact the Centre do not hesitate to email the team members Piotr Alexandrowicz (piotr.alexandrowicz@amu.edu.pl) or Matthew Cleary (matthew.cleary@amu.edu.pl).

JOB: Postdoc position in history of ius commune (Poznan: Adam Mickiewicz University, DEADLINE: 13 October 2025)

The Centre for Ius Commune at Adam Mickiewicz University (Poznan, Poland) is seeking a Postdoctoral Researcher for the ERC Starting Grant project "PetrIUS: Petrification of ius commune through printed paratexts".

Between the 1460s and 1620s, printed editions of canon and civil law texts witnessed a constant development of marginal paratexts, such as glosses, summaries, cases or commentaries. They were added to authoritative legal sources because the printers were interested in improving the quality and attractiveness of new source editions. They often hired legal experts who offered them new tools, resources, and ideas. These were incorporated into printed books using new printing techniques. In consequence, the dynamic between improved new editions and advances in printing enterprise fueled the ongoing development of printed legal books. Various questions concerning the origin, transmission, and influence of paratexts are embedded in the interplay between sources and marginalia, manuscripts and printing, editors and printers, and books and their readers. PetrIUS has an innovative approach for shifting the focus from source (text) to marginalia (paratexts). PetrIUS aims to examine how print and its evolution helped to petrify – that is, consolidate – landmark achievements of late medieval ius commune. This is done by enabling some doctrinal accounts to be transferred into marginalia of source editions. The novelty brought about by print affected legal science and communication. PetrIUS will acknowledge how legal experts employed novel technical tools to transfer the heritage of medieval law into early modern source editions and how these processes affected patterns of scientific work and the transfer of knowledge in academia. To do so, PetrIUS will implement typical legal and book history tools as well as natural language processing techniques. The latter enables detailed comparisons between paratexts’ printed editions and their reception in the scholarly literature. The research will conclude with a legal theoretical study that assesses the early modern significance of paratexts by treating them as the media of law, that is, the means of legal communication.

The postdoctoral researcher will contribute to the implementation of the project by studying the printed paratexts of the corpus iuris civilis. Their work will focus primarily on two main work packages related to these printed paratexts: classification of types and functions of paratexts added to printed corpora iuris (WP1) and petrification of late medieval ius commune taking the form of printed paratexts in corpora iuris (WP5).

This is a full-time position for 45 months (including 6 months probation period) starting December 2025.

For more information on the call and on the project do not hesitate to contact the project PI, Piotr Alexandrowicz (piotr.alexandrowicz[at]amu.edu.pl).

More information on the call can be found here.

CALL FOR PAPERS: Ius Commune in the Making: Meaning in Law [Ius Commune Workshop on Comparative Legal History] (Amsterdam: UvA, 27 NOV 2025) [DEADLINE 1 AUG 2025]

 

Ius Commune Workshop on Comparative Legal History

Ius Commune in the Making: Meaning in Law

27 November 2025

 

(Amsterdam door Robinson, Joseph - 1807 - The Royal Library: The National Library of Denmark and Copenhagen University Library, Denmark - CC BY-NC-ND; source: Europeana).

The 29th Ius Commune Conference will take place in Amsterdam (27-28 November 2025), and a Workshop will be devoted to “Meaning in Law.”

 

The workshops on “Comparative Legal History – Ius Commune in the Making” aim to reveal and understand the nature and effects of various legal formants in the development of law. Indeed, forces of legal formants are too often lost or hidden beneath a superficies of commonalities. History is a living laboratory. In the past, we explored the role of legal actors (2014), legal sources (2016), force of local laws (2017), methods and dynamics of law (2018), networks (2019), paradigmatic shifts (2020), great debates in the history of law (2021), the concept of innovation in law (2023), and manifestations of nature in law (2024).

 

This upcoming workshop is dedicated to the different conceptions of “meaning” in law. What is understood by meaning? On a working level, it may be taken up as “interpretation” of rules or juridical acts, or as “qualification” of facts. There it provides for a wide realm of comparative historical research. It does cover in essence everything, concerning individual and societal intention and action - and whatever over time is part of the legal domain. Legal methodology is just around the corner, and so is political philosophy - to any individual person, or to institutions such as legislators, judges, and professors. To get to the meaning of a legislative, judicial, or jurisprudential norm: why are some schools of thought, such as textualism, originalism, contextualism, or sociological jurisprudence, preferred over others?

 

Maxims or principles enlighten the cobbled roads towards meaning in law. In claris cessat interpretatio - if words are clear, interpretation stops; even so: though the Praetor’s edict could be perfectly clear, still its interpretation should not be neglected, Ulpian makes clear (D 25.4.1.11). Matters not dealt with in law, may be derived by analogy - Julian (D 1.3.12) - if such makes sense in the light of what has been prescribed. At the same time, concepts may have a range of consecutive (legal history) and parallel (comparative law) meanings in the legal domain - even in the same society or jurisdiction. Contracts have been similarly understood based on texts or contexts; understanding contracts gave birth to similar maxims, which methodological toolboxes show, albeit with large differences, both of the civil law and the common law traditions. The meaning of a rule or a fact is, however, not only determined by the method of logical and/or empirical reasoning - but also by (tradition of) explicit consensus, customs, and religion. Is there a hierarchy? In any way - all modes of finding and justification of meaning are interrelated, react and overlap, and ultimately may contribute. Traditional customs, specifically proven, meeting rational standards and natural, canonical aequitas might not only be accepted, but might even trump mandatory statutes; natural aequitas similarly might give birth to an actio utilis where traditional and consensual law did not. What is meaning in law? Certainty too often seems to be in contemporary law the prime virtue. It is not. There is hierarchy here. In the quest for a good life, veritas and fides have more important seats at the table - always headed by the bright sun of justice.

 

Senior researchers and PhD candidates are invited to submit an abstract of a paper related to the above-mentioned theme. Abstracts (max. 400 words) should be sent to Agustín Parise (agustin.parise@maastrichtuniversity.nl) no later than 1 August 2025. Shortly after that, the authors will be informed whether their papers are selected for a presentation during the Workshop. All contributions should be in English. Co-authored papers will be also considered. The organizing committee will give preference to early-career researchers when facing submissions of similar quality.

 

Researchers from within and outside the Ius Commune Research School will be eligible to present abstracts. Please also forward this call to colleagues who might be interested.

 

Should you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact a member of the organizing committee,

Harry Dondorp (j.h.dondorp@vu.nl)

Wouter Druwé (wouter.druwe@kuleuven.be)

Michael Milo (j.m.milo@uu.nl)

Pim Oosterhuis (janwillem.oosterhuis@maastrichtuniversity.nl)

Agustín Parise (agustin.parise@maastrichtuniversity.nl)

 

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 commune: ius 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.

Read more here. 

JOURNAL: Rivista internazionale di diritto comune XXXV (2024)

(Image source: Euno edizioni)

Memorie di umanità e diritto 

• The Tyranny of Law: Summum ius, summa iniuria (Kenneth Pennington)
• Tra Longobardi, grifoni e castelli: Riccardo cuor di leone a Messina (Federico Martino)

Saggi

• Individual, Territory and Intention: Citizenship in the Medieval Legal Debate (Sara Menzinger)
• La Bolla d’Oro del re ungherese Andrea II e il diritto comune (Péter Bónis)
• Antonio Roselli’s Role in a Florentine Arbitration between Averardo and Michele di Lapo da Castiglionchio and Antonia di Pierozzo Strozzi (Elena Brizio – Julius Kirshner)
• Diritto internazionale e relazioni interconfessionali: introduzione al tema 
• Il diritto delle nazioni nei viaggi in Oriente di Giovanni di Pian di Carpine, Guglielmo di Rubruk e Marco Polo (Andrea Padovani)
• Fedeli, infedeli e zelus fidei nella tradizione giuridica: da Francesco d’Assisi a Dante (Christian Zendri)
• An international right of self-determination in the 14th century? The chance of an international legal order in the Middle Ages, the Declaration of Arbroath 1320 and the independence of peoples (Mathias Schmoeckel)
• Il patto con gli infedeli: un impium foedus? Venezia, i Turchi ed Enea Silvio Piccolomini / Pio II prima e dopo la caduta di Costantinopoli (Orazio Condorelli)
• The Discreet Chasm of Religious Incompatibility: Pierre Goudelin’s De iure pacis commentarius (1620) (Alain Wijffels)
• Infidelitas e dominazione sulle Indie: il pensiero di Diego de Avedaño (1594-1688) (Luisa Brunori)
• La francisation des Amérindiens au 17e siècle. Enjeux économiques, politico-religieux et juridiques (Serge Dauchy)

Varie 

• Vocazioni di Bartolo (Ferdinando Treggiari)
• Gerhard Dilcher (1932-2024). In memoriam (Christian Zendri)

Orientamenti bibliografici 

• Bibliografia

More information can be found here.

JOURNAL SPECIAL ISSUE: Le ius commune à la fin du Moyen Âge et au début de l'époque moderne. Notions, méthodes, (dis)continuités - Clio@Themis 27 (2025) (open access)

 

(Source: Clio@Themis)

Dossier : Le ius commune à la fin du Moyen Âge et au début de l'époque moderne. Notions, méthodes, (dis)continuités

• Dante Fedele et Wouter Druwé: Introduction [Texte intégral]
  Le ius commune entre droit médiéval, droit moderne et histoire du droit : une notion à contenu variable - DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/12qyx
• Ken Pennington: Ancient, Medieval, and Early Modern Concepts of the Ius commune [Texte intégral] - DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/12qyo

• “Ius commune” is the term that scholars use to describe the legal system that reigned on the European continent between ca. 1100 and 1750. Modern scholars, however, have generally not understood how the term was used in Roman law, medieval and early modern law. This essay attempts to illustrate the meanings of “ius commune” in the writings of ancient, medieval, and early modern jurists.

• Andrea Padovani: Il diritto nella Chiesa. Un dibattito due-trecentesco [Texte intégral] - DOI:  https://doi.org/10.4000/12qyp

• Dalla seconda metà del sec. xii la Chiesa cattolica, ormai proiettata verso il controllo dell’Europa, si costituisce progressivamente come un organismo compatto, retto da un insieme di norme giuridiche, quale mai aveva avuto nei secoli precedenti. La costruzione di questo edificio complesso ed articolato è resa necessaria anche dalla competizione con l’Impero, che si ammanta del mito di Roma e delle sue leggi. Proprio l’assorbimento, nel Corpus Iuris Canonici, di istituti, concetti e termini tratti dal diritto romano alimenta le prime fasi di una discussione che si allarga a criticare, da parte degli ordini monastico-contemplativi, la giuridicizzazione della Chiesa, consegnata agli appetiti di ecclesiastici senza scrupoli. Se, nei primi decenni del sec. xiv, la polemica avviata dalle ali rigoriste dell’ordine francescano circa la povertà di Cristo e degli apostoli chiede un superamento delle categorie concettuali imposte dal diritto civile in favore dello ius poli, per altri – i giuristi Giovanni da Legnano e Antonio da Budrio – si tratta di riportare la funzione del diritto comune nella prospettiva della salvezza eterna e dell’ordinata vita civile.

• Florian Reverchon: L’identification de systèmes ou de théories dans les œuvres du ius commune [Texte intégral]
  L’exemple de la doctrine relative aux actes invalides (xii^e-xv^e siècle) - DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/12qyq

• La restitution des élaborations dogmatiques des auteurs du ius commune suppose parfois une démarche systématique semblant infidèle aux sources. À partir de l’exemple de la nullitas des actes juridiques, cet article propose une réflexion sur l’identification de théories dans les œuvres du droit savant. L’articulation entre la conception commune de la nullité comme vice ontologique, et le discours technique sur l’annulation des actes prohibés conduisit à des constructions que l’on peut qualifier de théories. Elles abordent la question de l’insertion de la norme dans l’ordre juridique et donc de la cohérence du droit.

• Ilya A. Kotlyar: “Generalis hypotheca est modici praeiudicii”: The adaptation of late medieval ius commune doctrine on the enforcement of obligations to contemporary legal practice [Texte intégral] - DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/12qyr

• L’exécution des dettes est toujours un domaine juridique d’une grande importance pratique, et le Moyen Âge européen n’a pas fait exception à cette règle. Beaucoup d’attention a été consacrée aux aspects techniques de l’exécution des dettes en France, en Italie ou encore aux Pays-Bas. Cependant, on ne s’est pas suffisamment intéressé à la manière dont la doctrine savante médiévale était adaptée à la pratique juridique. Les pactes exécutifs, les clauses de nonaliénation, l’excussio bonorum ou le constitutum possessionis étaient considérés comme une « question d’importance quotidienne ». Cet article étudie comment la juxtaposition de l’hypothèque générale et de l’hypothèque spéciale est apparue dans les travaux des juristes médiévaux et soutient qu’elle a été inspirée par la pratique juridique d’alors en Italie et en France.

• Robert Fredona: Consensus, Authority, and Truth in the Early Sixteenth-Century Ius Commune [Texte intégral] -  DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/12qys 

• Medieval rules that bound practicing lawyers and judges to follow the consensus of jurists were systematized in the Renaissance. A high point in the theorization of communis opinio doctorum came in the early sixteenth century. This essay contextualizes this moment by showing its relationship with late-medieval textual and pedagogical practices, new scholarly technologies in the age of print, and, most importantly, law’s essential function as a generator of probable truths in a world, not unlike our own, of radical doubt and epistemic conflict.

• Arnaud Le Gonidec: Les sédimentations du ius commune dans l’édification du droit fiscal français [Texte intégral] - DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/12qyt 

• Le droit proprement national émerge dans le dernier tiers du xvie siècle des traités juridiques de l’école dite des Politiques. Ces juristes ont réemployé les concepts du ius commune pour penser les liens sociaux en général et la solidarité fiscale en particulier. Ce réservoir de règles et de principes a alimenté une certaine idéologie publiciste dont l’égalitarisme se révèle, notamment, dans l’exégèse des métaphores fiscales au moyen du ius commune.

• Piotr Alexandrowicz: The early modern differentiae iuris civilis et canonici and ius commune [Texte intégral] - DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/12qyu

• Les differentiae iuris civilis et canonici du début de l’époque moderne constituent un genre emblématique du « nouveau ius commune », le droit savant du début de l’époque moderne qui discutait de la portée et de la pertinence du ius commune de la fin du Moyen Âge pour le système juridique de l’époque. Les auteurs des differentiae n’ont pas articulé une signification cohérente de l’expression « ius commune », et ne l’ont qu’occasionnellement appliqué avec une approche quelque peu nouvelle dans leur raisonnement, qui visait à réconcilier les divergences entre les deux corps de droit. Néanmoins, les differentiae du début de l’époque moderne peuvent être perçues comme un genre juridique dont l’un des objectifs était la cohérence interne du ius commune.

• Adolfo Giuliani: F. Calasso’s concept of ius commune, the Romanist tradition, and the problem of historical representation [Texte intégral] - DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/12qyv

• Le 16 janvier 1933, un jeune historien du droit du nom de Francesco Calasso (1904-1965) prononça une conférence sur un sujet qui allait prendre d’assaut la nouvelle génération d’historiens du droit : « Le concept du ius commune ». Il proposa une idée qui non seulement a changé l’image du passé juridique, mais qui a donné également un nouvel élan à l’histoire du droit en la plaçant au cœur de la science juridique. Aujourd’hui, nous devons revenir en arrière et examiner de près ce qu’il a dit, car le ius commune, qui est devenu au cours des décennies suivantes une clé majeure pour comprendre l’histoire du droit, a perdu de sa clarté. 

• Alain Wijffels: Epilogue [Texte intégral]
  No communis opinio on ius commune - DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/12qyw
•