Rechtsgeschichte – Legal History 27 (2019) is now available

September 30, 2019

The first article in the new issue of the Rg is unfortunately also the last publication of António Manuel Hespanha, who was a close associate of the Max Planck Institute for European Legal History for many years. To our great regret, he passed away only a few weeks before the journal went to press. His contribution summarises the prosopographical work on Portuguese lawyers of the early modern period carried out over the last three decades, which sheds light on the social origins, education and career patterns of both scholars and practitioners of law in the Lusophone world. The second essay in the Research section is by Jean-Louis Halpérin. It deals with the surprising connection between criminal law and the law of nations at German-speaking universities from the 16th to the early 20th centuries – long before the advent of international criminal law. The Council of Trent’s (1545-1563) debates and decisions are the starting point of the issue’s first thematic Focus, ‘Tridentine Marriage’. Ten authors examine the effects and implications of the marriage law reforms enacted by the council in a variety of different regions around the world (Europe, Pakistan, Japan, the Philippines, Latin America) up to the 19th century. To mark the 100th anniversary of the Weimar Constitution, the second Focus section, ‘Translating Weimar’, addresses the text’s transnational resonance. Five contributions analyse local perspectives from Asia, Latin America and the Common Law World. This year’s Forum takes a closer look at the two handbooks on legal history published last year by Oxford University Press. Focusing on specific themes related to their own fields of expertise, researchers from our Institute review the volumes and offer their own comments on the discussion on the state of the discipline. Luckily, the book review section treats more than just two books. As always, the books reviewed have been published within the past two years. Our policy of trying to commission reviews in a language other than the publication’s is aimed at facilitating the transfer of knowledge across linguistic, regional and disciplinary boundaries. Finally, Anette Baumann shares her observations on the evidentiary inspection practices of the Reichskammergericht (1495-1806), and has selected a number of inspection maps (Augenscheinkarten) to illustrate the print edition of the journal.

In keeping with our established practice, this issue of the Rg is available both in print (Verlag Klostermann) and online in Open Access on the journal's new website.

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