Borders of the Early Modern Ius Commune

The culture of the ius commune has been a unifying element of European and Western legal civilization. As shown by several recent studies, the influence of ius commune extended much farther than its traditional core area. This volume discusses the expansion and changes of ius commune in three significant corners of Europe, which in the classical narrative either totally or partially were left out of the picture: England, Scandinavia, and Venice. The study goes beyond the traditional question of the influence of ius commune in comparing the different constellations of normativity and legal pluralism in these regions. It investigates how not only ius commune but also other forms of normativity – such as customary law, written norms, and legal practice – were used and applied, and how they circulated. The approach helps create new narratives as to how the relationship between centers and peripheries in Europe evolved in the early modern period. These new narratives are built from bottom to top; thus, they are based on concrete source information, and they focus on the learned legal systems and their connection to the local legal sources. The collection further looks into the circulation of professors and doctors, students, and legal texts, starting from the idea that a theoretical understanding of the forms of normativity can emerge only through concrete, multidisciplinary research recognizing the tensions between global legal unification and differentiation. The book will be essential reading for researchers and academics in Legal History, Law and Religion, Comparative Legal Studies, and Early Modern History.

1. Borders of ius commune: Ius commune at the Borders

PART I: IUS COMMUNE AND VENICE
2. Lawyers in Venice: A Curious Business
3. “Negari tamen non potest Venetos Ius Civile Romanorum colere et venerari”: Venetian Law and ius commune between the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries
4. Students, Graduates, or “Tourists”: Scholars from across the Borders in Padua in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
5. Venetian Law and ius commune: The Origins of a Controversy

PART II: IUS COMMUNE AND ENGLAND
6. The Invisible Border between Ius Commune and Common Law: Traditional Interpretations and New Prospects
7. Legal Pluralism in the Law Courts of Early Modern England
8. Roman Law in Sixteenth-Century England: Professor Thomas Smith
9. Common Lawyers and Civilian Lawyers in England: Barriers and Connections
10. Gerard Malynes and the "Ancient Law-Merchant": A View on the ius commune from the Borders

PART III: IUS COMMUNE AND SCANDINAVIA
11. Ius Commune at the Merchant Courts of the Hanse Kontor in Bergen?
12. The Emergence of the Profession of Procurators: In Early Modern Denmark
13. Adjusting the ius commune: The Swedish Legal Procedure in the Early Modern Period
14. The Reception of the ius commune through German Law in Reformation Sweden (ca. 1530–1610): Torture, Police, and Crime

EPILOGUE
15. Re-reading Arthur Duck: Ius commune and Insular Exceptionalism