European Legal History

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

This course provides an account of the development of legal thought, culture and institutions through medieval and early modern European history. It will focus mainly on the period between the 11th and 17th centuries, with occasional reference to to relevant preceding and later periods. By examining the evolution legal norms and institutions in widely different contexts, the course will broaden the students' ability to think critically about legal institutions past and present, foreign and domestic, and deepen heir understanding of the historical and philosophical foundations of legal systems, as well as the relation between law, society and politics. The main topics covered will be: Law in the European Early Middle Ages; the origins of legal teaching and learning in the universities; the notions of jus commune and legal science; the development of national law in Europe (incl. the English common law); the early modern development of legal learning: humanism, second scholasticism and natural law theory; the consolidation of national legal systems in early modern Europe.