European LegalHistory

The Doucet Scholarship: 

CfA: The Institute invites applications fortwo Doucet scholarships. Thescholarships are intended to fund aresearch stay at the Institute, so that theresearchers can utilise the Doucet library.For more information (in Spanish), seebelow.

2 – 3 July, Workshop: Legal Biography,Catharine MacMillan (King’s College),Stefan Vogenauer, Victoria Barnes (MPI)

8 July, 12:00, Jour Fixe: The courts ofHaiti and the suppression of the Atlantictrade in African captives, Manuel, BastiasSaaverda (MPI)

We are delighted to welcome you to our newsletter. It is designed foreveryone with an interest in legal history, global history, or legalstudies. The Max Planck Institute for European Legal Historyinvestigates the history and development of law in Europe and beyond.In our monthly newsletter, we keep you updated about events at theInstitute, new publications by our fellows, and other news about thefield. For comments, suggestions, and general feedback, please emailus. We hope you enjoy this month's issue.

CfA: The Institute’s Editorial Departmentis looking to recruit a student researchassistant.

more details

10 July, 11:00, Workhop: Law andTextuality, Saskia Limbach & NicolasWeichselbaumer (Mainz)

15 July, 14:15, Seminar: TheMandatory Sentence of Death inBarbados, Lynsey Black (MaynoothUniversity)

more events

by Victoria Barnes and Emily Whewell, in:The Chinese Journal of Comparative Law 7(2019), 26 – 48.

This article investigates to what extent theEnglish doctrine of misrepresentation wasadapted for the local context by the BritishSupreme Court for China and Japan. The article adds to our understandingof the historical evolution of the doctrine of misrepresentation in thecommon law world. It finds that legal ideas concerning misrepresentationdid not change significantly when they crossed borders. Lawyers in theBritish consular courts in China borrowed their legal understandings andknowledge from English contract law. It points to the context, the origins,and the socialization of the legal community as one way of understandingtransfers between spatially separated groups. It also draws attention toother aspects of this phenomenon, such as information asymmetriesbetween those at the centre and the periphery, the speed in the circulationof legal texts, and the movement of those in the legal profession.

by Sean Bottomley, in: Economic HistoryReview 72 (2019), 510-530.

It was a commonplace among contemporaries,and remains received wisdom today, thatinventors were poorly remunerated during theindustrial revolution. Adapting a dataset of 759British inventors, this article presents the firstlarge‐scale attempt to examine the issuesystematically. Using probate information, thearticle shows that inventors were extremelywealthy relative to the adult male population.Inventors were also significantly wealthier thananother group who would have received asimilar inheritance (in terms of both financial and social capital) and enteredsimilar occupations: their brothers. Their additional wealth was derived frominventive activities: invention paid.

by Daniel Damler,Cambridge/Antwerp/Chicago: intersentia,2019, 202 p., ISBN 1780688342

The year 2019 marks the centenary of thefounding of the Bauhaus, arguably the mostinfluential school of art and design in themodern era. Commemorative activities will focuson its culture-historical significance, with scantattention being paid to a more fundamental question: the ramifications onlegal and political thinking caused by the deep-seated transformation of thematerial world during the so-called age of extremes.

By Karl Härter, in: Revista daFaculdade de Direito da Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais 74(2019), pp. 353-378.

The article observes the circulation of transnational criminal law in theperiod from 1848 to 1914 by analysing the extradition treaties concludedbetween states in Germany and the Americas. Specific attention is paid tothe issues of ‘transnational crime’ and ‘political offences’ as well as to thequestion how the international circulation of criminal law shaped legalconcepts and narratives of ‘international crime and security’. An importantaim is to show that Latin American countries such as Argentina, Brazil,Paraguay and Uruguay participated in the international circulation oftransnational criminal law through extradition treaties, multilateralconventions and national extradition laws.

10 July, Lecture Hall, 11:00-16:00

Speaker: Saskia Limbach, NikolausWeichselbaumer (Mainz),Organisation: Manuela Bragagnolo

(Dep. II)

With a few important exceptions, legal historians have not paid that muchattention to the 'material aspect' of legal books over the past few decades.The recent 'methodological thunderstorm' in the field of book studies (e.g.related to the opening of new horizons in the history of reading, the historyof audiences, the social history of education and the history of the media)has had a relatively small impact on legal history. Only recently, in fact,have a handful of legal historians showed that the development of earlymodern legal thinking was not only the product of the intellectual activity ofthe so-called 'author', but it was also influenced by several other factors andactors related to the development of the printing press. Antonio ManuelHespanha, for example, clearly expressed the need to bridge the gapbetween material bibliography and the history of legal thought.

This workshop aims to start 'bridging the gaps' between book historians andlegal historians by bringing the two groups into a discussion with oneanother. Together with Saskia Limbach and Nikolaus Weichselbaumer, wewill analyse some fundamental aspects related to early modern book

production, circulation and authorship, as well as try to understand how this'material' approach in working with legal books could be used in legalhistorical studies.

 

El Instituto pudo ampliar demodo sustancial los fondos desu biblioteca en el área deHistoria del Dereco Indiano,gracias a la integración en elaño 2015 de aproximadamente

4.800 títulos pertenecientes a la colección de los historiadores del derechoLourdes Lascurain de Doucet y Gastón Doucet. La Biblioteca Doucet cuentacon más de 600 obras sobre historia en general, por encima de 1700 títulossobre la Nueva España, más de 800 obras sobre Río de la Plata y otras 600sobre Perú y alto Perú, así como otros muchos libros sobre las Antillas,Florida, Yucatán, Chile, Filipinas, Venezuela, Nueva Granada y Paraguay.Para consultar los títulos que conforman el Fondo, puede acceder alcatálogo de la biblioteca del instituto e ingresar “Provenienz Doucet” en elcampo de búsqueda básica del OPAC: https://sunrise.rg.mpg.de/webOPAC

Para facilitar el acceso a la colección a jóvenes investigadoras einvestigadores no residentes en Frankfurt, especialmente provenientes deAmérica Latina, interesados en hacer uso de este importante fondo, elInstituto otorga anualmente un subsidio para una estancia de investigacióndurante un periodo de 3 meses en el Instituto.

La segunda convocatoria de la “Beca Doucet” se encuentra abierta y elplazo para el envío de las aplicaciones es el día 15 de Septiembre de 2019,para una estancia de Enero a Marzo de 2020 (02.01-31.03.2020).

Las aplicaciones (CV, descripción del proyecto y carta de motivación enrelación al uso del Fondo Doucet) se recibirán hasta el 15 de Septiembre2019, dirigidas al Prof. Thomas Duve, al correo electrónico:sekduve@rg.mpg.de

The group seeks to identify, analyze and studythe various institutions and forms developed toextract indigenous labour and tribute from theHispanic world's frontier territories. The group'sproject is entitled: Towards a renewed legalhistory of indigenous labour and tributeextraction in the Spanish empire. Stemmingfrom juridical and ecclesiastical cases andresulting legislation, we take a legal,ecclesiastical, and social approach to the studyof exploitation of indigenous peoples in remote regions with weaker colonialinstitutions. A study of the various systems of labour exploitation and tributeextraction Spaniards established on frontier territories showcasesinstitutional elasticity and the molding power of local agents in shaping therelationships between the invaded and the invaders.

This Max Planck Partner Group is headed up by David Rex Galindo, formerpost-doctoral fellow at the Institute and now professor at the UniversidadAdolfo Ibáñez (UAI), and Thomas Duve, our director. The officialcollaboration started 1 June, 2019. Max Planck Partner Groups are designedto facilitate research projects of shared interest with former top juniorresearchers within the MPS who returned to their home or another country.

Black, Lynsey (University College Dublin, Ireland): The Mandatory DeathSentence in Ireland, Trinidad and Tobago, and Barbados: Colonial Legaciesand Sovereign Symbols, visiting July – September 2019Cherchi, Alice (Università degli Studi di Cagliari, Italy): New Reflections onthe Theophili Paraphrasis, visiting July – August 2019Clausen, Thomas (Trinity College, Cambridge, UK): Roland Freisler (1893-1945): an intellectual biography, visiting December 2018 – September 2019Cobo, Natalie (Brasenose College, University of Oxford, UK): TranslatingSolórzano, visiting July 2019Cobo Betancourt, Juan (University of California Santa Barbara, USA):

Diccionario Histórico de Derecho Canónico en Hispanoamérica y Filipinas.Siglos XVI - XVIII (DCH), visiting July 2019Domínguez Benito, Héctor (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain): Theend of an empire – Titles over territories in Spanish and Ibero-Americaninternational law, 1810-1928, visiting July – December 2019Gogoaşe, Loredana (Universitatea "Lucian Blaga" din Sibiu, Romania): DerCodex Altenberger – das erste Gesetzbuch der Siebenbürger Sachsen,visiting July – August 2019Guanche, Julio César (FLASCO, Quito, Ecuador): La ciudadanía republicanen Cuba. (1902-2002). Un studio integral, visiting July – December 2019Klebaner, Samuel (Université de Bordeaux, France): The determinants ofthe sectoral deregulation in Europe during the 80s, visiting July – September2019Lima, Bruno (Universidade de Brasília, Brazil): Between the ancien régimeand modernity: natural law and constitution in the legal thinking of Fr.Joaquim do Amor Divino Caneca (1779-1825), visiting September 2018 –August 2019Mamolea, Andrei (Institut de Hautes Études Internationales et duDéveloppement, Genèva, Switzerland): Reexamining InternationalArbitration, 1890-1914, visiting April – August 2019Okada, Masanori (Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan): "LegalTransformation" in relation to East Asia and investigate some historicalprocesses of "reception" of German law in the 19th century Japan, visitingJune – August 2019Ramis Barceló, Rafael (Universitat de les Illes Balears, Palma de Mallorca,Spain): Encyclopaedism, textuality and Jurisprudence in 16th and 17thCenturies, visiting April – June 2019 Roldán Cañizares, Enrique (Universidad de Sevilla, Spain): The receptionof Jiménez de Asúa's penal doctrines and acts in Spanish America, visitingJuly – September 2019Schirò, Pietro (Università degli Studi di Verona, Italy): The Social School ofCriminal Law, visiting May – September 2019Söğüt, İpek Sevda (Kadir Has Üniversitesi, İstanbul, Turkey): “ExceptioDoli Generalis” in Roman Law, visiting July – September 2019Spitra, Sebastian (Universität Wien, Austria): Semantical Order andUnequal Encounters: the Formation of Private International Law in the 19thcentury, visiting July – September 2019Tarozzi, Simona (Università degli Studi di Bologna, Italy): Rezeption derGrundlage des römischen Verfahrensrechts in römisch-germanischenQuellen und in common Law, visiting April – September 2019Walker, Andrew (Wesleyan University, Middletown, USA): Strains of Unity:Property and Emancipation in Haitian Santo Domingo, 1822-1844, visitingJuly – August 2019

 

"Doppelkopf" with ThomasDuve

How is globalization shaping ourlegal systems as well as our legalconvictions? Is the state loosing its

Four Teams—one goal: TheJPMorgan Challenge 2019

For the first time ever, the MPIs forEuropean Legal History, Biophysics,Brain Research, and Heart & Lung

Keeping you up-to-date on the activitiesand public engagements of the Institute'sresearchers abroad. If you are in the areaand are interested in attending, feel freeto stop by.

Donal Coffey, Provincialism andfederalism in Commonwealthconstitutional thought, The 2019 BritishLegal History Conference, University of St Andrews, Scotland, 12 July 2019, 09:00

Mariana Dias Paes, Book Launch Escravidão e direito: o estatuto jurídico dosescravos no Brasil oitocentista (1860-1888), Livraria da Alameda, Rua Treze deMaio, n. 353, São Paulo, 7 July, from 18:30 to 21:30.

Mariana Dias Paes, Escravidão e direito: o estatuto jurídico dos escravos noBrasil oitocentista (1860-1888), 30 Simpósio Nacional de História, Recife, 15 - 19July.

Anselm Küsters, Big Data im Kartell- und Datenschutzrecht, WürzburgerSeminare zur Digitalisierung, R19, Alte Universität, Domerschulstraße 16,Würzburg, 12 July, 15:00. 

importance in the era of google andfacebook? Are we witnessing theemergence of ever increasing legalvacuums? And how can we handlethe law’s frailty in times of crises?These were the questions thatThomas Duve discussed withRegina Oehler during an hour longinterview in the midday series“Doppelkopf” on hr 2 Kultur. Heexplained why he is driven by thesequestions and why we need to goback in time in order to findanswers to current problems. Thetexts produced during the 16th and17th centuries at the school ofSalamanca represent a paramountexample for the depth andcomplexity with which old legaltexts still speak to us today. Theyare considered the cradle ofmodern human rights.

Every day at noon, hr 2 Kultur hostsan hour long interview withinteresting intellectuals, artists,politicians, scientists etc. Theinterview combines discussing theperson’s individual biography, theirwork, passions as well as privateviews. The guest's also usuallyprovide some music to be playedduring the intervals. You can listento the interview online and find outwhat kind of playlist Thomas Duvesuggested for his interview.

Jasper Kunstreich

Research collectively took up thechallenge. While the rains early inthe day brought back memories oflast year's horribly humidconditions, the weather eventuallycleared and the sun came out tomake for a pleasant evening run.One by one, the teams assembledat the Willy-Brandt-Platz in front ofthe Euro sculpture—in the endalmost 120 eager runners. After afew group photos, we all made ourway to the various staging areas towait for the big moment.Unsurprisingly, the challengeactually did not consist in running5.6km; in reality, it's about pickingthe best line to weave through thetens of thousands of people allgoing at very different speeds. Andeven if we didn't all cross the finishline at the same time, wenevertheless achieved our commongoal: bringing everyone together.

James Thompson

If you find this newsletter interesting, you might also be interested inthe special newsletter for Ibero-American Legal History, which ispublished monthly by our research group 'Legal History of Ibero-America'. You can subscribe under the following link.

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