BOOK: Aleksander GREBIENIOW, Estate Planning by Agreement in the Sources of Roman Law [Warschauer Schriften zum römischen Recht und zur europäischen Rechtstradition, eds. Tomasz GIARO, Jakob FORTUNAT STAGL, Maria NOWAK, and Aleksander GREBENIOW; 2] (Boston/Paderborn: Brill/Schöningh, 2025), XX + 459 p. ISBN 978-3-506-79508-3 [OPEN ACCESS]

 

(image source: Brill/Schöningh)

Abstract:

The present book encompasses various legal phenomena pertaining to wealth transfer mortis causa in the world of Roman law. It demonstrates that succession in property rights could be realised by agreements of various kinds, which – though not building a coherent legal concept and being much different from the modern understanding of contractual succession – served as will-substitutes, i.e. functional equivalents to the Roman testament. The study goes back to the ancient sources in order to select and examine any testimonies of agreements aimed at regulating patrimonial relationships after death: agreements having immediate effect between the living, those enforceable only at the death of the deceased, and finally, settlements altering the order of succession mortis causa long after his passing away. It uncovers a series of societal patterns of behaviour staying behind legal institutions. The extent of the already ancient phenomenon of estate planning by agreement and the diversity of the dogmatic issues involved provides a notable starting point for discussions on the contemporary inheritance law dogmas.

Table of Contents:

Preface................................................................................................ 3

CONTENTS....................................................................................... 4

Abbreviations...................................................................................... 7

Introduction....................................................................................... 11

1 The Methodological Framework...................................................... 15

1.1 Objective, Objects of Research and Thesis................................. 15

1.1.1 The Notion of Estate Planning............................................. 15

1.1.2 Correspondent Concepts in Ancient Roman Law.................. 17

1.1.3 Additio: The Notion of Contractual Succession.................... 27

1.1.4 Thesis................................................................................ 30

1.2 The State of the Field................................................................ 31

1.2.1 Romanistic Scholarship on Contracts of Succession Mortis Causa........................................................................................ 31

1.2.2 Roman Law and Social Realities......................................... 37

1.3 Sources, Methods, and Research Plan........................................ 52

1.3.1 Sources.............................................................................. 52

1.3.2 Method.............................................................................. 56

1.3.3 Research Plan.................................................................... 60

2 The Institutions of Estate Planning................................................... 62

2.1 Successio anticipata: Juridical Acts Concluded and Executed During Life............................................................................................... 62

2.1.1 Divisio ab intestato............................................................ 66

2.1.2 Donationes...................................................................... 127

2.1.3 Dowries........................................................................... 180

2.1.4 Peculia............................................................................ 185

2.1.5 Specific Cases of Anticipated Succession........................... 192

2.1.6 Conclusions Concerning Anticipated Succession................ 197

2.2 Juridical Acts Mortis Causa Enforced at Death......................... 200

2.2.1 Mancipatio familiae.......................................................... 200

2.2.2 Stipulationes.................................................................... 209

2.2.3 Pacta............................................................................... 237

2.2.4. Pacta Dotalia Mortis Causa............................................. 259

2.2.5 Mandatum Post Mortem and Related Institutions................ 295

2.2.6 Conclusions on Wealth Transfers Enforced at Death........... 318

2.3 Agreements Concerning Succession Mortis Causa Concluded Post Mortem........................................................................................ 324

2.3.1 Venditio hereditatis.......................................................... 324

2.3.2 Postmortal Pacts and Transactiones................................... 327

2.3.3. Conclusions regarding Postmortal Arrangements............... 335

3 Conclusions.................................................................................. 337

3.1 General Observations.............................................................. 337

3.2 Specific Observations............................................................. 340

3.3 Final Observations.................................................................. 350

4 Bibliography................................................................................. 354

5 Index of Sources........................................................................... 389

Read more here (DOI 10.30965/9783657795086). 

BOOK: Philipp Morten MARTIN, Grundstücksveräußerungen von Juden im Nationalsozialismus [Beiträge zur Rechtsgeschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts; 124] (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2024), 219 p., ISBN 978-3-16-163684-4

ABOUT THE BOOK:

Philipp Morten Martin beschäftigt sich mit Grundstücksveräußerungen von Juden im Nationalsozialismus in den Jahren 1938 und 1939. Dazu hat er über 40.000 Notarurkunden aus den Landgerichtsbezirken Düsseldorf, Köln und Wuppertal untersucht. Ziel war es, die in der historischen Forschung bisher wenig berücksichtigte Frage nach der Wirksamkeit dieser Veräußerungen zu erfassen. Der Autor arbeitet heraus, an welchen vertraglichen Regelungen und Umständen des Vertragsschlusses sich der Einfluss der nationalsozialistischen Verfolgung darstellen lässt. Dies betrifft etwa die erzwungenen Veräußerungen von Grundstücken oder solche Veräußerungen, die unter Drohungen gegen die Veräußerer zustande kamen. Auch wird untersucht, wie die jüdischen Eigentümer an den Veräußerungen beteiligt wurden, wenn sie selbst nicht mehr bei der Beurkundung erscheinen konnten, weil sie geflohen waren.

Find more here.

OPEN ACCESS: Wim DECOCK, Theologians and Contract Law. The Moral Transformation of the Ius Commune (ca. 1500-1650) [Legal History Library, eds. Remco VAN RHEE, Dirk HEIRBAUT & Matthew C. MIROW, vol. 9/Studies in the History of Private Law, vol. 4] (Leiden/Boston: Martinus Nijhoff/Brill, 2012)

 

(Image source: Brill)

Prof. Wim Decock (UCLouvain/ULiège)’s famous monograph Theologians and Contract Law (Legal History Library, 9/Studies in the History of Private Law, 4, 2012, see earlier on this blog) has been made available in open access. 

DOI 10.1163/9789004232853

BOOK: Simona TAROZZI & Elisabetta Fiocchi MALASPINA (eds.), From International Treaties to the Binding Nature of Contract. A Historical and Comparative Analysis (Ravenna Capitale, 2022), pp. 35-50. ISBN 978-88-916-5847-0.

 

(https://www.mondadoristore.it/Ravenna-capitale-From-Elisabetta-Fiocchi-Malaspina-Simona-Tarozzi/eai978889165847/#tabMenu-8)

BOOK: Filippo ROSSI (ed.), Consenso e dissenso nelle codificazioni europee. Scioglimento e mantenimento del vincolo contrattuale tra storia giuridica, diritto privato e comparazione (Pisa: Edizioni ETS, 2021), ISBN: 978-8-8467-6-2610

(Image source: Edizioni ETS)

ABOUT THE BOOK
Il volume raccoglie gli atti del Convegno COnsenso e DIssenso nelle Codificazioni Europee (Milano, 2021) e fa parte di un più ampio progetto di ricerca che analizza, in prospettiva multidisciplinare e diacronica, il mantenimento e lo scioglimento del vincolo contrattuale attraverso la prospettiva del recesso unilaterale.
Con la sua capacità di affievolire la vincolatività dell’accordo e di operare oltre e al di là del diritto comune, il recesso apre una serie di questioni, molte delle quali irrisolte, che si innervano nel rapporto tra principi generali e paradigmi operativi di un sistema contrattuale messo alla prova dal continuo evolvere dei rapporti socio-economici. Di fronte alla complessità delle dinamiche ingenerate dal recesso, il volume offre una lettura ‘plurale’ che possa contribuire al dibattito tra adesione alla termination ed ‘eterni ritorni’ del modello giudiziale, tra ricorso al recesso e regolazione del mercato, tra adeguatezza dei rimedi e gestione delle sopravvenienze, senza trascurare gli aspetti legati alla crisi pandemica.

ABOUT THE EDITOR
Filippo Rossi è ricercatore di Storia del diritto presso la Facoltà di Giurisprudenza dell’Università degli Studi di Milano, ove insegna Storia del diritto medievale e moderno e Storia dei diritti umani. Si è occupato di storia del lavoro, pubblico e privato, nonché di storia del diritto delle obbligazioni, con particolare riferimento allo scioglimento del rapporto contrattuale. Tra le sue pubblicazioni: Il cattivo funzionario nel Regno Lombardo-Veneto (Giuffrè, 2013) e La costruzione giuridica del licenziamento (Giuffrè, 2017).

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Introduzione (Giovanni Chiodi)
• PROFILI STORICO-GIURIDICI
• ‘… Dissensu contrario dissolvi potest’: spunti dal diritto romano (Francesca Pulitanò)
• Consenso vs dissenso. Itinerari sullo scioglimento unilaterale del contratto in età moderna e contemporanea (Filippo Rossi)
• PROFILI DI DIRITTO CIVILE
• La dichiarazione stragiudiziale di risoluzione per inadempimento come forma di recesso (Matteo Ambrosoli)
• Il recesso del consumatore tra regolazione del mercato e tutela del soggetto debole (Andrea Dalmartello)
• Il contratto tra forza di legge e forza maggiore. Il problema delle sopravvenienze alla luce delle recenti normative emergenziali epidemiologiche (Arturo Maniaci)
• Le clausole sulle sopravvenienze nei contratti di compravendita di partecipazioni sociali (Ilaria Maspes)
• PROFILI DI DIRITTO COMPARATO
• Pacta sunt servanda. Il dibattito europeo dopo la pandemia (Carlo Masieri)
• PROFILI DI DIRITTO DEL LAVORO
• Consenso e dissenso nel diritto del lavoro: brevi note introduttive (Maria Teresa Carinci)
• Consenso e dissenso nell’emergenza pandemica: la prospettiva del diritto del lavoro (Francesca Marinelli)

More information can be found here.

BOOK: Emmanuel ARAGUAS, Le contrat civil à Jersey : Bastion du droit coutumier en terre anglo-normande [Droits étrangers; 16] (Paris: Société de législation comparée, 2021), ISBN 9782365171069, € 20

 

(image source: SLC)

Abstract:

Le concours lancé par la  Société de Législation Comparée à l'occasion des 150 ans de sa fondation a distingué cet essai consacré au droit des contrats de l'île de Jersey. Au fil de ces lignes s'exprime un certain état d'esprit : celui qui recommande un retour aux sources du droit comparé, à la pensée de Saleilles et Lambert, et qui incite à solliciter le ius commune, toujours si présent à Jersey. L'île est le théâtre de l'étude, mais le lecteur n'y aborde pas pour un voyage d'agrément : l'affrontement contemporain sur les territoires anglo-normands entre coutume et droit écrit s'y révèle aussi puissant que les violents courants marins qui agitent la Manche. À l'heure où s'affrontent des influences contradictoires pour déterminer la réforme du droit des contrats de Jersey, l'auteur  propose à tous les praticiens des mixed legal systems composés de droit civil et de Common Law, à la fois un diagnostic et un remède.

See publisher's website. 

ADVANCE ARTICLE: Warren SWAIN, 'The Great Britain of the South’: the Law of Contract in Early Colonial New Zealand' (American Journal of Legal History)

(image source: Wikimedia Commons)

Abstract:

Some nineteenth century writers like the Scottish born poet William Golder, used the term ‘the Great Britain of the south’ as a description of his new home. He was not alone in this characterisation. There were of course other possible perspectives, not least from the Māori point of view, which these British writers inevitably fail to capture. A third reality was more specific to lawyers or at least to those caught up in the legal system. The phrase ‘the Great Britain of the south’ fails to capture the complexity of the way that English law was applied in the early colony. The law administered throughout the British Empire reflected the common law origins of colonial legal systems but did not mean that the law was identical to that in England. Scholars have emphasised the adaptability of English law in various colonial settings. New Zealand contract law of this time did draw on some English precedents. The early lawyers were steeped in the English legal tradition. At the same time, English authorities were used with a light touch. The legal and social framework within which contract law operated was also quite different. This meant, for example, that mercantile juries were important in adapting the law to local conditions. Early New Zealand contract law provides a good example of both the importance of English law in a colonial setting and its adaptability.

(more information with Oxford Journals)

BOOK: Martinus BECANUS, On the Duty to Keep Faith with Heretics (ed. Wim DECOCK, transl. Isabelle BUHRE) [Sources in Early Modern Economics, Ethics and Law] (Grand Rapids (MI): Acton Institute, 2019), 180 p. ISBN 978-1-949011-03-6, 19 USD

(image source: Acton Institute)

Book abstract:

This work offers an extraordinary perspective on the early modern debates about toleration and the binding force of private agreements and international treaties between people of different Christian faiths. Drawing on principles of contract law developed by jurists and theologians from the School of Salamanca, the Jesuit controversialist Martinus Becanus (1563–1624) argues in favor of the duty to honor promises beyond confessional boundaries. This first English translation of Becanus’s De fide haereticis servanda allows modern scholars to discover a major work of one of the most prominent advocates of a permission concept of tolerance in the early modern period

The work is equally presented on the Acton Institute's blog.
More information on the publisher's website.

SSRN PAPER: Emily KADENS, Cheating Pays (forthcoming in Columbia Law Review)

(image source: Mendeley)

Abstract:

Common private-ordering theories predict that merchants have an incentive to act honestly because if they do not, they will get a bad reputation and their future businesses will suffer. In these theories, cheating is cheating whether the cheat is big or small. But while reputa­tion-based private ordering may constrain the big cheat, it does not necessarily constrain the small cheat because of the difficulty in discover­ing certain types of low-level cheating and the consequent failure of the disciplining power of reputation. Yet the small cheat presents a signifi­cant challenge to modern contracting, both between businesses and in the contracts of adhesion imposed on consumers. To encourage private law scholars to address the unique governance challenges posed by low-level cheating, this Essay describes the conditions under which low-level cheating can flourish and become widespread. It demonstrates this so-called “Cheating Pays” scenario using a historical case study in which a seventeenth-century London grocer, trading under precisely those condi­tions that private-ordering theories predict will incentivize honesty, not only cheated extensively but also successfully remained in business after having been caught and publicly punished. Identifying the scenarios in which cheating pays has implications for how firms use contracts and how consumers might use the courts to try to reduce opportunistic behavior.

Read the full paper on SSRN.

(source: Legal History Blog)

BOOK: Anat ROSENBERG, Liberalizing Contracts: Nineteenth Century Promises Through Literature, Law and History (London: Routledge, 2019). ISBN 9780367150839, £29.59

(Source: Routledge)

In 2017, Routledge published a book on 19^th century liberal thought and the concept of contract in England. The paperback version has now been published.

ABOUT THE BOOK

In Liberalizing Contracts Anat Rosenberg examines nineteenth-century liberal thought in England, as developed through, and as it developed, the concept of contract, understood as the formal legal category of binding agreement, and the relations and human practices at which it gestured, most basically that of promise, most broadly the capitalist market order. She does so by placing canonical realist novels in conversation with legal-historical knowledge about Victorian contracts. Rosenberg argues that current understandings of the liberal effort in contracts need reconstructing from both ends of Henry Maine's famed aphorism, which described a historical progress "from status to contract." On the side of contract, historical accounts of its liberal content have been oscillating between atomism and social-collective approaches, missing out on forms of relationality in Victorian liberal conceptualizations of contracts which the book establishes in their complexity, richness, and wavering appeal. On the side of status, the expectation of a move "from status" has led to a split along the liberal/radical fault line among those assessing liberalism's historical commitment to promote mobility and equality. The split misses out on the possibility that liberalism functioned as a historical reinterpretation of statuses – particularly gender and class – rather than either an effort of their elimination or preservation. As Rosenberg shows, that reinterpretation effectively secured, yet also altered, gender and class hierarchies. There is no teleology to such an account.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Anat Rosenberg is an Assistant Professor (Lecturer) at the Radzyner Law School, The Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya, Israel. She had been a visiting research fellow at Columbia Law School, and is currently a visiting scholar at the Faculty of History at the University of Cambridge, and a visiting fellow at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, the University of London. Her research brings together law, literature, sociology and cultural studies, to study the history of late modern capitalism.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction; 1. Contract’s Liberalism in Contracts Histories;　 　Part I: From Status　　　Foreword to Part I;　 　2.Credit and the Market:　Vanity Fair　and　The Way We Live Now; 3.　Contract and Abstraction(?): Agency in　Ruth　and　Bleak House;　 　4.　Contract and Freedom(?): Constrained Existence in　Middlemarch　and　The Mayor of Casterbridge;　 　Part II: With Status　 　Foreword to Part II;　 　5. Status-to-Contract Reassessed: The Victorian Promise of Marriage;　 　6. Liberal Anguish:　Wuthering Heights　and the Structures of Liberal Thought;　 　Epilogue: History is Always in the Future

More information here

PHD DEFENSE: Paolo ASTORI, Lutheran theology and contract law in Early Modern Germany (ca. 1520-1720) (Leuven: KULeuven, 13 Jun 2018)

(image source: KULeuven)

On Wednesday 13 June 2018, drs. Paolo Astori (KULeuven) will publicly defend his doctoral dissertation  Lutheran theology and contract law in Early Modern Germany (ca. 1520-1720) (supervisor: Prof. dr. Wim Decock/KULeuven-ULiège).

The examination board will consist of Prof. dr. Emmanuele Conte (Roma III) (co-supervisor), Prof. dr. Laurent Waelkens (KULeuven), Prof. dr. dr. Alain Wijffels (UCLouvain/Leiden/KULeuven/CNRS) and Prof. Dr. John White jr. (Emory School of Law)

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS: World Congress of Roman and Comparative Law, "Contracts, Goods and Trade Market" (Valparaiso, 23-24 Jul 2015); DEADLINE 15 JUN 2015

(image source: conference website)

We were informed of the call for abstracts for the upcoming "World Congress of Roman and Comparative Law" in Valparaiso (Chile).

Each participant will have 20 minutes to give his communication. All proposals should relate to the main subject of the congress: “Contracts,goods and trade market”. Presentations can be given in Spanish, English, French, Italian, German or Portuguese.

The  following  publication  of  the  works  presented  to  the  Congress  will  be  subject  to  a  blind  refereeing process and to the editorial norms of the Revista de Estudios Histórico-Jurídicos (www.derecho.ucv.cl). The deadline to send the full text of the communications that wish to be included in the publication will be notified in due time

Proposals are expected by 15 June 2015.

More information on the conference website.

CALL FOR ESSAYS/ARTICLES: Le centenaire du Dahir sur obligations et contracts, Livre jubilaire

Call for essays/articles, by Prof. Fouzi Rherrousse, University of Fez, Maroc

Deadline: october 2014

 APPEL À CONTRIBUTION, PROJET D'OUVRAGE COLLECTIF

Mesdames, Messieurs,

Je travaille en ce moment avec d’autres chercheurs sur un livre jubilaire pour commémorer le centenaire du Dahir sur obligations et contrats. Je serais heureux si vous participiez à ce projet.  Vos contributions, ajouteront une plus-value à notre modeste entreprise.

Le livre jubilaire aura pour but de promouvoir l’histoire du droit au Maroc et l’intégrer dans l’enseignement supérieur, cette discipline est le grand absent des facultés de droit au Maroc.  Le livre jubilaire sera partagé en deux parties, une partie sur la Discipline de l’histoire du droit, son importance ses méthodes, et une autre partie sur l’histoire du D.O.C (dahir sur obligations et contrats) en particulier.  Le livre jubilaire sera bien le seul dans son genre, car les autres manifestations concernent la célébration du centenaire du DOC étaient publiées sous forme d’actes de colloques ou l’histoire du droit n’avait aucune place.

La date limite pour déposer les articles est le début octobre.

Le Livre Jubilaire portera entre ses lignes un rêve, celui de diffuser  la méthode.      

Et la sagesse de l’Histoire du Droit.

Cordiales salutations

Pr Fouzi Rherrousse

 Université de Fez

Maroc

contacts: 

exocet7@hotmail.fr

BOOK PRESENTATION: "Theologians and Contract Law. The Moral Transformation of the Ius Commune (ca. 1500-1650)", by Wim Decock (Paris, 7 May 2014)

What: Book presentation and debate, meeting of the Atelier d'anthropologie scolastique, questions disputées en histoire intellectuelle du Moyen Âge

Where: École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), salle 4, 105 Bd. Raspail, Paris

When: 7 May 2014, 3:00-5:00 pm

All information here

Wim Decock, Max-Planck-Institute for Legal History, Frankfurt, and KU Leuven

PUBLICATION: Wim Decock on Theologians and Contract Law

Brill just published Wim Decock (KULeuven/MPI Frankfurt)'s doctoral thesis Theologians and Contract Law. The Moral Transformation of the Ius Commune [Studies in the History of Private Law, 9/4], xix + 723.

Abstract:

The Roman legal tradition is the ancestor of modern contract law but there is no agreement as to how and when a general law of contract emerged. Wim Decock’s thesis is that an important step in this evolution was taken by theologians in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. They transformed the Roman legal tradition (ius commune) by insisting on the moral foundations of contract law. Theologians emphasized that the enforceability of contracts is based on voluntary consent and that a contract should not enrich one party at another's expense. While their main concern was the salvation of souls, theologians played a key role in the development of a systematic contract law in which the founding principles were freedom and fairness

More information on the publisher's website.