Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory
Special Legal Orders Normative Diversity in the 19th and 20th Centuries
Research Field
The company as a special order: Factory of Zeitzer Eisengießerei und Maschinenbau AG (1919)
The company as a special order: Factory of Zeitzer Eisengießerei und Maschinenbau AG (1919)
The legal history of the 19th and 20th centuries is characterised by a remarkable ambivalence. On the one hand, it was the time of large-scale codifications, mostly based on the principle of the equality of the users of law, which regulated broad areas of life in a uniform manner. Aiming to achieve universality, this law represented – at least to both practitioners and scholars of law – the legal system. On the other hand, the social differences – whether new or old – and the functional differentiation within modern society tied to the proliferation of new regulations regarding specific groups or domains became very apparent. Added to this were regulatory requirements resulting from a realignment of local, regional and central regulatory fields. At the international level, the problem of the interaction between non-Western norms and operative rationales with international law, long been shaped by the West, also arose.
Numerous fundamental questions of modern legal history are connected to these opposing movements towards universality, on the one hand, and increasing differentiation, on the other. How did state law seek to accommodate these developments? What non-state legal systems emerged? What role did particular religious, cultural, technological, socio-political and economic rationalities come to play in legal or regulatory systems? What special judicial orders developed? Did new concepts of law and normativity emerge? The Research Field brings together projects that explore these questions by examining specific sectors or groups, or that focus on contemporary jurisprudential reflection on these special orders.
Collin, P.; Wolckenhaar, L. (Eds.): Plurale Rechtsverständnisse? Begriff und Grundlagen des Rechts in den juristischen Teildisziplinen im späten 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhundert. Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main (2025), VI, 456 pp.
Ebbertz, M.: Die Aushandlung betrieblicher Regeln nach dem Betriebsrätegesetz von 1920. Die Arbeitsordnung im Spannungsfeld institutioneller Interessen in der frühen Weimarer Republik. Rechtsgeschichte - Legal History Rg 33, pp. 156 - 166 (2025)
Vesper, T.-N.: Vergütung der Treue. Die Dienstaltersprämierung zwischen Gepflogenheit und Formalisierung am Beispiel württembergischer Unternehmen im späten 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhundert. Rechtsgeschichte - Legal History Rg 33, pp. 131 - 142 (2025)
Wolf, J.: Gewalt im Betrieb um 1900. Eine arbeitsrechtliche Spurensuche. In: Verschwiegener Alltag. Gewalt am Arbeitsplatz seit dem 19. Jahrhundert, pp. 59 - 75 (Eds. Heying, M.; Jaeger, A.; Kleinöder, N.; Knoll-Jung, S.; Voigt, S.). Dietz, Bonn (2025)
Roriz, J.; Assis, M. C. d.: O gênero da biografia e a história do direito internacional. Revista Brasileira De História & Ciências Sociais 33, 2024 (16), pp. 549 - 570 (2025)
Ebbertz, M.: Arbeitsordnung und Strafbestimmungen – Betriebliche Normenproduktion nach dem Betriebsrätegesetz 1920. Arbeit und Recht 2024 (3), pp. G5 - G8 (2024)
Wolf, J.: "Women as Workers". Discussions about Equal Pay in the World Federation of Trade Unions in the Late 1940s. In: Through the Prism of Gender and Work. Women’s Labour Struggles in Central and Eastern Europe and Beyond, 19th and 20th Centuries, pp. 202 - 230 (Eds. Çağatay, S.; Ghiț, A.; Gnydiuk, O.; Helfert, V.; Masheva, I. et al.). Brill, Leiden; Boston (2024)
Collin, P.; Casagrande, A. (Eds.): Law and Diversity: European and Latin American Experiences from a Legal Historical Perspective. Vol. 1: Fundamental Questions. Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory, Frankfurt am Main (2023), IX, 759 Seiten pp.
Härter, K.: Insane Offenders, Dangerous Criminals, Criminal Responsibility and Security Measures: The Positivist Criminology Network and the Reform of Criminal Law in Imperial Germany. Glossae: European Journal of Legal History 20, pp. 68 - 94 (2023)
