Prof. Dr. Thomas Duve

Director

+49 (69) 789 78 - 165

Research Interests

Thomas Duve researches legal history from a global perspective. He explores how knowledge of normativity was produced in the early modern period taking into account the entanglements between the secular and religious normative spheres, especially in the Iberian worlds. His work also focuses on the use of the past in law, on colonial law, and on the methods of legal history and of comparative law.

Project Management

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Graphic text cloud with the term "Methoden der Rechtsgeschichte" in the center

Methods of Legal History

Doing Legal History

Seminar more

Detailed historical map showing Catholic missions in China, overlaid with vertical green matrix code to enhance digital contrast.

Mapping conflicts: a digital global legal history with China

Max Planck Partner Group

Thomas Duve, Fupeng Li, Haochen Ku, Min Li more

Translating China

Asia China Cooperation Doing Legal History

Thomas Duve, Sandra Michelle Röseler more

Glocalising Normativities. A global legal history (15th-21st century)

Early Modern Period Global History Glocalisation of Knowledge of Normativity

Thomas Duve, Luisa Stella Coutinho, Rômulo da Silva Ehalt, Fupeng Li, Raquel R. Sirotti, Luca Alexander von Bogdandy, Karolyne Mendes Mendonça Moreira, Haochen Ku, Mauro Armando Adelino Manhanguele, Karoline Marques Machado, Vanessa Massuchetto, Sandra Michelle Röseler, Julia Hütten, Christian Pogies, Xinran Liu more

The School of Salamanca

Canon Law Cooperation Digital Humanities Early Modern Period Global History Iberian Worlds Knowledge of Normativity from the Sphere of the Religious Moral Theology Sources

Thomas Duve, Matthias Lutz-Bachmann, Christiane U. Birr, José Luis Egío García, Andreas Wagner, Polina Solonets more

Mutual dependencies and normative production in Africa

Africa Beyond Slavery and Freedom Cooperation Global South Iberian Worlds Knowledge of the Production of Normativity Modernity Mutual dependencies and normative production in Africa

Thomas Duve, Raquel Razente Sirotti, Karolyne Mendes Mendonça Moreira more

Historical dictionary of canon law in hispanic America and the Philippines, 16th–18th century (DCH)

Canon Law Early Modern Period Iberian Worlds Knowledge of Normativity from the Sphere of the Religious Reference Work

Thomas Duve, María del Pilar Mejía Quiroga, Ana Isabel Soler Otte, Nádia dos Santos Aguiar more

Title page of a historical book titled “Ioannis de Solórzano Pereira, De Indiarum Occidentalium Iure et Gubernatione”, featuring a floral woodcut ornament at the top.

Translating Solórzano

Doing Legal History Iberian Worlds Sources

Thomas Duve, Natalie Cobo more

Intricate engraving featuring allegorical figures, globe, and Latin inscriptions.

Digital library De Indiarum Iure

Iberian Worlds Sources Doing Legal History

Thomas Duve more

Surreal eye with sky and clouds in the pupil, featuring text about the Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory.

Legalhistoryinsights.com

Doing Legal History Sources

Thomas Duve, Julia Hütten, Nádia dos Santos Aguiar, Alexandra Wielandt more

Research Projects

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Rolling hills with scattered trees and ancient stone ruins, under a partly cloudy sky.

Multiversos narrativos: fuentes y visiones alternativas de la historia del derecho de aguas y tierras en los Andes del Perú

Doing Legal History

Armando Guevara Gil, Thomas Duve more

Struve Burkhard Gotthelf (1718) - Historia iuris Romani

Regimes of tradition

Early Modern Period Knowledge of the Production of Normativity Middle Ages Modernity

Thomas Duve more

Vintage map of the world with detailed illustrations of continents, seas, and intricate border patterns, featuring compass roses.

Methods of global legal history

Doing Legal History Global History

Thomas Duve more

Woodcut of a historic printing workshop with several workers working on printing presses and typesetting boxes in a large room.

The Production of Knowledge of Normativity and the Early Modern Book Trade

Max Planck Partner Group

Thomas Duve, Manuela Bragagnolo, Polina Solonets, Christiane U. Birr, Fupeng Li more

Completed Projects

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The Cambridge History of Latin American Law in Global Perspective

Completed Global History Global South Iberian Worlds Glocalisation of Knowledge of Normativity

Thomas Duve, Tamar Herzog more

Title page of a historical book: "Relectio Sade Poenitentia Habita in Academia Salmanticensi. Anno D.D.XVIII" by Brother Melchior Cano, printed in Compluti (Alcalá) at the printing house of Ioannes Brocarius. At the bottom, the name "Alexander Vandeborgh" appears, possibly a former owner.

Critical edition and translation of Melchior Cano's Relectiones theologiae (1550)

Canon Law Completed Early Modern Period Iberian Worlds Moral Theology Sources Knowledge of Normativity from the Sphere of the Religious

Thomas Duve, Ana Isabel Soler Otte, Juan Belda Plans more

What is the School of Salamanca?

Completed Iberian Worlds Moral Theology Glocalisation of Knowledge of Normativity

Thomas Duve more

Solórzano Pereira, Juan de: Politica Indiana

Introduction to research on the legal history of early modern Hispanoamerica

Completed Doing Legal History Iberian Worlds

Thomas Duve, José Luis Egío García more

Derecho y Diversidad - Perspectivas histórico-jurídicas

Completed

Thomas Duve, Mariana Dias Paes, Karla Luzmer Escobar Hernández, Massimo Meccarelli, Pamela Cacciavillani more

Curriculum Vitae

Thomas Duve was born in Hamburg in 1967. After compulsory military service and an apprenticeship in a bank, he studied at the universities of Heidelberg, Buenos Aires and Munich. He passed the two German State Examinations in Law at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München and the Universität Hamburg, respectively, receiving his practical training in Hamburg. He then worked at the Faculty of Law in Munich, first as a faculty assistant, then as an assistant professor, and 2004–2005 as the leader of a subproject in the Collaborative Research Centre Pluralization and Authority in the Early Modern Age funded by the DFG (CRC 573). He was awarded his doctorate in 1997 and in 2005 gained his professorial qualification (Habilitation) for civil law, German legal history, historical comparative law, canon law and philosophy of law. Between 2005 and 2009, he was Professor of Legal History with a so-called dedicación especial en investigación at the Faculty of Law and Professor of the History of Canon Law at the Faculty of Canon Law of the Pontificia Universidad Católica Argentina (UCA), as well as a member of the board of directors of the Instituto de Investigaciones de Historia del Derecho, Buenos Aires. He became a Scientific Member of the Max Planck Society in 2009, and since 2010 has been a Director at the Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory (formerly Max Planck Institute for European Legal History) as well as Professor for Comparative Legal History at the Faculty of Law of the Goethe-Universität Frankfurt.

Thomas Duve is the (co-)editor of numerous academic journals and publications series, and a member of many scholarly associations, scientific academies and research cooperations (for details, see his full CV).

Publications (Selection, 2018-2026)

Historia del derecho de América Latina en perspectiva global

Edited by Thomas Duve and Tamar Herzog
Historia del derecho de América Latina en perspectiva global, Valencia: Tirant Lo Blanch, 2026. Spanish translation of “The Cambridge History of Latin American Law in Global Perspective” (CUP, 2024). more

El Derecho canónico en la temprana Edad Moderna y la historia global

Thomas Duve
El Derecho canónico en la temprana Edad Moderna y la historia global, Ius Canonicum 65:129 (2025), 169–218. more

História do Direito Latino-americano em Perspectiva Global

Edited by Thomas Duve and Tamar Herzog, translated by Gustavo Silveira Siqueira and Júlia Muinhos
Portuguese translation of “The Cambridge History of Latin American Law in Global Perspective” (CUP, 2024). more