Call for contribution Dossier History of classical law of peoples (original) (raw)

Ius gentium: The Metamorphoses of a Legal Concept (Ancient Rome to Early Modern Europe)

in: Empire and Legal Thought. Ideas and Institutions from Antiquity to Modernity, ed. Edward Canavagh, Brill/Nijhoff [Studies in the History of International Law], Leiden/Boston, 2020

This chapter outlines a history of the concept of ius gentium. It is intended to serve as a contribution to the intellectual history of international law, from Late Antiquity to Early Modern Times. The historical role played by the concept in the framing of international law is not easy to evaluate, as the oldest traces of Roman ‘public international law’, in the sense of law regulating relations between polities, are actually found within ius fetiale. It is, in fact, difficult to arrive at a clear understanding of ius gentium in the history of Ancient and Medieval legal thought, due to a semantic stratification dating back to Roman Antiquity: on the one hand, a fundamental ambiguity exists in the relationship between ius naturale and ius gentium (as in Gaius’ definition, Dig. 1.1.9, possibly under Ciceronian influence) – on the other, the latter, first classified as a branch of the ius privatum (Ulpian, Dig. 1.1.1.4), was later understood as including public law institutes (Hermogenian, Dig. 1.1.5) and even institutes mainly relating to foreign relations (Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae V.6 = Decretum c. 9, d. 1). The simple juxtaposition of these definitions within Justinian’s compilation and Gratian’s Decretum raised several theoretical issues for Medieval jurists, and generated a significant scholarly debate. Firstly, following Dig. 1.1.4 and Dig. 1.1.5, glossators argued that ius naturale and ius gentium – not, as would be claimed by later jurists, Roman law as a whole – formed the ius commune. Secondly, commentaries on Dig. 1.1.5 analysed the various legal institutes listed within the passage, focusing particularly on dominium and obligations. Thirdly, both jurists and theologians elaborated extensively upon the connections between ius gentium and ius naturale: they first drew a distinction between ius naturale primaevum and secundarium, and then reformulated this distinction in such a way that ius gentium itself was split into ius gentium primaevum and secundarium. Many words were to be expended on this distinction until well into Early Modern Times, in the course of a discussion which recent scholarship has studied in depth. This chapter, however, will focus less on this doctrinal debate during the the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries than on the transformation undergone by ius gentium as it developed into a ius inter gentes specifically regulating relations between political communities. Special attention will be paid to diplomatic theory, which has proven to be a particularly interesting field within which to fully evaluate the slow emergence of the state as the only legitimate subject of international law.

Law, Society, and Authority in Late Antiquity. Edited by Ralph W. Mathisen

The Heythrop Journal, 2007

The book under review is a collection of sixteen essays, originally presented at the second biannual 'Shifting Frontiers in Late Antiquity' conference, convened in 1997 at the University of South Carolina. The premise is simple and brilliant: Late Ancient legal documents can provide valuable insights into the transition from the Roman Empire to the Middle Ages. There are of course limitations to the use that can be made of these sources. As Antti Arjava rightly notes in her outstanding contribution, 'It should not, of course, be presumed that imperial constitutions or juristic commentaries per se had a wide currency. Even today most people learn the individual legal rules in force in their society only when they get personally involved in a dispute. In this sense laws are probably never ''embraced'' by the populace at large' (p. 51). However, the evolution of law and legal commentary can and, in the hands of these scholars, does reveal a great deal about how post-classical societies were organized. So the papers presented in this volume are extremely useful for augmenting our knowledge of this fascinating period. The scope of the essays is wide-ranging.

"Laws and Notions of Law in Premodern Cultures" syllabus (History, University of Victoria)

In this course, we will examine systems of, and ideas about, law, in a broad sense, from antiquity to the early modern era, particularly (though not exclusively) in societies rooted in the major Abrahamic faiths in Europe, Asia, and North Africa. Together we will consider law as something that is always, in the first place, historically contingent, shaped by and vividly reflective a particular time and placealthough not necessarily evidence of effective implementation or regular enforcement. Yet, even when we cannot know whether certain premodern laws or law codes were actually put into practice, such texts can still reveal much about the ideals, expectations, and norms within cultures at particular moments, or at least about the legal and political actors hoping to impose order on those societies. Because laws and notions of law in the premodern world were nearly inextricable from the spheres of politics and religion, we will focus especially on the complex intersections of these core components of culture and society.

A Cultural History of Law in the Middle Ages. Edited by Emanuele Conte and Laurent Mayali

2019

This is the second volume of a series of six, published by Bloomsbury in 2019. The contributions included in this volume cast new light on the cultural significance of law in the Middle Ages. As it evolved from a combination of religious norms, local customs, secular legislations and Roman jurisprudence, medieval law defined a normative order that was more than the sum of its parts. It promoted new forms of individual and social representation. It fostered the political renewal that heralded the transition from feudalism to the early modern state and contributed to the diffusion of a common legal language with the emergence of the ius commune.