Rechtsgeschichte – Legal History 29 (2021) now published
The nearly 500 pages of this year’s issue of Rechtsgeschichte – Legal History 29 once again offer a selection of outstanding articles, shorter discussion pieces and book reviews on important topics in legal history. Some of these relate to the Institute’s core research fields, others explore stimulating work in other areas.
The preparation of this issue was overshadowed by the death of Michael Stolleis in March 2021, and it therefore opens with an obituary of this extraordinary scholar by Thomas Duve. Over the years, Michael Stolleis contributed many articles and book reviews to this journal, and his knowledge, insights and advice will be much missed.
In this issue’s Research section, two of the mpilhlt’s Directors offer contributions on fundamental issues in legal theory (Marietta Auer) and on legal history as the history of normative knowledge (Thomas Duve). Wolfram Brandes’ article looks back over half a century of research on Byzantine legal history in Frankfurt.
Three Focus sections present contributions on the circulation of ‘legal books’ in early modern Iberian America (ed. by Manuela Bragagnolo) and oral history as a method of contemporary legal history (ed. by Sigfrido Ramírez Pérez and Stefan Vogenauer) as well as selected papers from the 25th Annual Forum of Young Legal Historians (ed. by Wouter De Rycke et al).
Thirteen scholars offer their perspectives on Martti Koskenniemi’s monumental To the Uttermost Parts of the Earth in this year’s Forum, which also includes a reply by the author.
The many, multilingual book reviews of the Critique section cover a wide range of topics, both geographically and chronologically. They are followed by two Marginalia taking the long view: Johannes W. Flume analyses the buildings of bourses and stock exchanges throughout the centuries, and Michael Widener complements and enriches the Focus on ‘legal books’ with a discussion of book illustrations from Yale Law Library from the Middle Ages to the present day, which are also the subject of this issue’s photo series.
