Nya publikationer från Max Planck-institutet i Frankfurt: tidskriften Rechtsgeschichte och två böcker.

Rechtsgeschichte – Legal History 26 (2018)

Journal of the Max Planck Institute for European Legal History, ed. by Thomas Duve and Stefan Vogenauer, Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann 2018, 529 p., ISSN 1619-4993, ISBN 978-3-456-04346-1, Open Access online edition: http://www.rg.rg.mpg.de/en/Rg26

Kicking off this year’s issue are two Research contributions that take up comparative perspectives as well as provide overviews of their respective topics: Within the context of Europe, Joachim Rückert traces the invention of national legal histories, and Tay-sheng Wang deals with the legal history of Taiwan as well as the question of the autonomy of the local civil law. The Focus section consists of three different topics concerning the broader history of the Iberian monarchies: At the centre of »Convivencias«, we have contributions taking up legal-historical perspectives involving the coexistence of members from different cultures, religions and confessions. The second Focus brings together the research investigating the origins of the School of Salamanca and thereby draws attention to hitherto little known authors and texts. »The End of Empires« is the topic of the third Focus. The contributions span a broad spectrum: from the Spanish Empire to the Brazilian Empire and even to the Ottoman Empire. They attempt to emphasise the legal dimension of the history of empires, in particular, that of the 19^th century. Book reviews on legal-historically relevant recent publications (in the variety of languages you have come to expect) regarding both the Focus topics just mentioned and much more have been assembled in the Critique section. Closing out the issue is Holger Knudsen’s contribution in Marginalia, which is much more than a book review. Here, Knudsen takes the book »Helgoland« as the point of departure for an investigation of English colonial law-making.

In addition to the print edition, the issue is available online in Open Access on the journal’s website and will soon be searchable in the Internet Archive as well as in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).

Two new volumes in the Open Access Book Series »Global Perspectives on Legal History«

With Diritto: storia e comparazione. Nuovi propositi per un binomio antico, edited by Massimo Brutti and Alessandro Somma, the Max Planck Institute for European Legal History presents the newest publication in its Open Access book series Global Perspectives on Legal History.

In 25 contributions, both legal historians and comparative lawyers investigate the interrelationship of their fields of expertise as well as their current development. Thus, some contributions such as Sulla convergenza tra studio storico e comparazione giuridica (M. Brutti) or Comparazione giuridica, fine della storia e spoliticizzazione del dititto (A. Somma) concentrate on theoretical aspects, while others are dedicated to specific research topics, such as Rethinking eurocentrism. European Legacy and Western Colonialism (L. Nuzzo) or Quale storia del diritto? Vecchi e nuovi scenari narrativi tra comparazione e globalizzazione (E. Augusti). The result are diverse ideas on the meaning and future of two scientific disciplines, which are historically closely connected, have in the 20^th century increasingly moved away from one another, and are now, given the opening of both disciplines to new methods and theories, not only enquiring about their relation to one another but also about their disciplinary identity. The multilingual volume contains mainly Italian, but also English and Spanish contributions.

The second new volume in the series is edited by Benedetta Albani, Otto Danwerth and Thomas Duve: Normatividades e instituciones eclesiásticas en la Nueva España, siglos XVI-XIX, is the first of four planned books dealing with the contribution of ecclesiastical institutions to normative orders in early modern Ibero-America.

What significance did religious institutions and their actors have for the formation of normative orders in Mexico (New Spain) of the 16^th to the 19^th centuries? The volume takes up this little-researched question in the field of legal history. In fourteen Spanish-language, interdisciplinary papers, the authors examine the relationships between various types of religious normativity (such as canon law and moral theology), their local adaptations and links to global debates. They also deal with diocesan administration and sacramental dispensation, with indigenous and Afro-American actors in court, and with normative aspects of piety in cultural life until the 19^th century. These research findings are relevant not only to legal history, but also to the history of the church and theology, social and cultural history, and ethnohistory.

Both volumes are available as usual on the website of the Max Planck Institute for European Legal History for PDF download and, in addition, in JSTOR and in the Internet Archive – always in Open Access.