Legal history

The history of law is an interdisciplinary science that is both included in the circle of law as well as the history of science. In German-speaking countries it is traditionally taught as a legal basis for science to law schools and disintegrates into a Romanist, Germanic and canonical branch. While the history of law in the 19th and even early 20th century took an excellent value in legal studies, it has about 1945 with an increasing importance decline and - by extension - associated with legitimation.

• 6.1 General
• 6.2 Reference
• 6.3 Overviews
• 6.4 Roman legal history
• 6.5 German legal history
• 6.6 Austrian legal history
• 6.7 Swiss legal history

• 7.1 General
• 7.2 Roman legal history
• 7.3 German legal history
• 7.4 Swiss legal history
• 7.5 Other

The Historical School as a starting point

The Historical School of the 19th century was no legal history of science in the modern understanding, but tried to draw direct benefit to the current law with the help of historical sources. Nevertheless, differentiated at this time the traditional disciplines out:

Romance languages ​​and literature

The classic ancient Roman law had been recorded in the outgoing Late Antiquity ( 533/534 ) in the Corpus Iuris Civilis and counted since its rediscovery in the 12th century to the taught at the university disciplines. As part of the so-called reception by about 1500 the university- refined Roman law as so-called Common Law (ius commune) also found in the common law way entrance into the legal practice (among Muehlhaeuser imperial law book, Constitutio Criminalis Carolina, Bambergische Embarrassing Halsgerichtsordnung ); the study of Roman law was thus pending the great codes (French Civil Code 1804, Austrian General Civil Code of 1812, German Civil Code in 1900, Swiss Civil Code 1912), not a purely historical concerns. After discontinuance of its practical applicability in the 19th and 20th centuries claimed the Roman ( private ) law its meaning as a university preparatory course for the study of the current ( French, Austrian, German, Swiss ) private law. The Romance is also part of the ancient history of law, which also examines the rights of other ancient cultures, such as the cuneiform rights or ancient Greek law.

German studies

The emergence of the German law at the beginning of the 19th century is also to be understood, but not only as a nationalist backlash to deal with the national "foreign " Roman law. As a counterpoint to the impressive closed and systematically thoughtful Roman law was tried as a self-contained, systematic " German law " to construct, as it is said to have existed before the reception. " German law " here is not to be understood as the applicable law in the territory of Germany, but the only " domestic law ", which should have almost exclusively Germanic roots. Especially this discipline had in 1945 to make a complete reorientation.

Canon law

The canon law, the science of Canon Law is traditionally strong historically pronounced and is therefore considered as a third legal history discipline.

The legal history in the 20th century

The rethinking of legal history was not alone a consequence of the entry into force of the codifications: Such could be said for Germany; in Austria, however, the break was not until 1900, but already in 1812, that takes place before the advent of the historical school of law. Nevertheless, similar trends are observed for Austria as well as Germany: With the differentiation and refinement of scientific historical methods had to be reset for the legal historian, the question of the durability of their previous theses and after the meaningfulness of their research approaches. The necessity of approaching the historical sciences, of course they removed more and more of the law. Thus, the legal history literally sat between two stools: From the Historical Sciences run by the lawyers legal history is still insufficiently taken note of in the law, there were growing voices that deny the necessity of legal history. This course is also related to the cancellation provided for in 1945 a return to natural law ideas and the belief in absolute values ​​, for the doctrine that all law is only a product of history, can only act annoying. Like hardly any other jurisprudential discipline provides the legal history today, therefore, their own legitimacy into question.

Magazines

The oldest existing legal-historical magazine is the journal of Savigny Foundation for Legal History. It stands in the tradition of Savigny with magazine published for historical jurisprudence and appears in its present form since 1879 in a Germanic and Romance languages ​​, since 1911 also in a canonical department in the publishing Böhlau. Since 1979, Manz is published the journal of Modern Legal History in publishing. Since 2002, published in Frankfurt am Main, the magazine legal history of the Max Planck Institute for European Legal History as a continuation of published since 1967 and discontinued in 2001 magazine Ius Commune. 2011, the Commission for Austrian Legal History of the Austrian Academy of Sciences founded the journal is for Austrian Legal History, which since then both online and in print is published by the Academy twice a year. Since 2010, the legal history written in English and German journal Journal on European History of Law, published in London twice a year there.

Quotes

" In the history of law is the insistence that resistance and recurrence of human, albeit converted behavior as visible as the quiet or eruptive occurring change, and the older man sees both in the reflection of his own experience. "