Welcome to the Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory

Welcome to the Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory

We provide a forum for reflecting on law.
We explore its theory and history in a comparative and global perspective.
We address societal challenges by contributing to a deeper understanding of law.
Multidisciplinary Theory of Law
Department Marietta Auer
Historical Regimes of Normativity
Department Thomas Duve
European and Comparative Legal History
Department Stefan Vogenauer
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News

The Age of Ambiguity

The Age of Ambiguity

April 16, 2025
What happens when you're expected to follow rules that contradict each other? That question is at the center of a lecture by historian Hillard von Thiessen (University of Rostock), taking place on April 23 as part of the series Frankfurter Rechtshistorische Abendgespräche. His talk, titled ‚The Age of Ambiguity. Concurrence and Competition of Norms in Early Modern Europe‘, begins at 18:15 in Room Z01 at our institute. At the heart of Thiessen’s talk is the concept of Normenkonkurrenz - the overlapping and often clashing expectations from different sources of authority: religious teachings, legal rules, and social codes. In early modern Europe, these weren’t neatly aligned. Quite the opposite - they pulled people in different directions. According to Thiessen, this wasn’t just confusing. It shaped an entire way of life. 
Law in colonial Spanish America between ecclesiastical and secular sphere
This new volume in the Studien zur europäischen Rechtsgeschichte explores how core legal concepts - such as judgement, jurisdiction, law, and justice - took shape in the dialogue between legal scholarship and moral theology. Focusing on the legal system of Hispano-America (derecho indiano), Orazio Condorelli traces key developments in the relationship between secular and ecclesiastical power, with a particular emphasis on the institutions that structured this relationship in the Spanish overseas territories from the 16th to the 18th century.
CfP: The Mixed Courts of Egypt, 1876–1949
Submissions are now open for a workshop on the Mixed Courts of Egypt, to be held on 23–24 February 2026 at the Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory. Organized by Dr Michel Erpelding and Aya Bejermi, the event invites reflection on an institution that stood at the crossroads of empire, international law, and everyday justice. Established through treaties between Egypt and 14 Western powers, the Mixed Courts operated for over seven decades with foreign judges and French-inspired legal codes. Their legacy stretches from Cairo to Strasbourg, and still prompts fresh questions today.

The Age of Ambiguity. Concurrence and Competition of Norms ('Normenkonkurrenz') in Early Modern Europe

Apr 23, 2025 06:15 PM - 07:45 PM (Local Time Germany)
mpilhlt, Room: Z01

Grundbegriffe der Schule von Salamanca: Säkularisierung im frühneuzeitlichen Naturrecht? Das Beispiel Hugo Grotius.

May 8, 2025 06:15 PM - 07:45 PM (Local Time Germany)
Campus Westend der Goethe-Universität, Room: IG 2.501
Beyond Property. Ownership Regimes in the Iberian World (1500-1850)
Cover Rechtsgeschichte – Legal History 32 (2024)
Cover Studien zur europäischen Rechtsgeschichte - Band 343, Heinz Mohnhaupt – Privilegien als Sonderrechte in europäischen Rechtsordnungen vom Mittelalter bis heute
Cover Global Perspectives on Legal History – Band 25, Legal Transfer and Legal Geography in the British Empire
Cover Studien zur europäischen Rechtsgeschichte - Band 337, Legal Pluralism and Social Change in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages
Cover Max Planck Studies in Global Legal History of the Iberian Worlds - Band 4, The Production of Knowledge of Normativity in the Age of the Printing Press
Cover SSSRN Paper 2024-08 What was Canon Law in Hispanic America and the Philippines (16th-18th Century)? An introduction to its sources, its modus operandi and its legal historical analysis
Cover Studien zur europäischen Rechtsgeschichte - Band 346, Otto Hintze
Cover Global Perspectives on Legal History – Band 24, Los viajes de las ideas sobre la cuestión criminal hacia/desde Argentina
Cover Studien zur Rechtstheorie – Band 001, Norberto Bobbio
Cover Global Perspectives on Legal History – Band 23, The Fabric of the Ordinary
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