Who is permitted to do what, when and where? In the early modern period, police ordinances (Policeyordnungen) were designed to clarify these questions down to the smallest detail. Now, for the first time, comprehensive information on these early modern norms has been made accessible in a digital repertory – in Open Access and searchable format. This not only enables new historical insights but also facilitates comparative analyses of early modern normative worlds across space, time and forms of rule.

What happens when someone acts without permission on behalf of another – and third parties are affected? Midas Kempcke, doctoral researcher at the mpilhlt, explores this intricate legal scenario in his PhD project on interventions with external effects in the law of negotiorum gestio. At the heart of his research lies a classic yet unresolved problem in private law: when an unauthorized intervenor enters the interest sphere of a principal and concludes contracts with third parties, who is legally bound?

The new volume “Die Entstehung des Sozialen Privatrechts in Europa: ein Trialog” (The Emergence of Social Private Law in Europe: A Trialogue) (Studien zur europäischen Rechtsgeschichte, Vol. 327-2) explores a previously under-researched phase in the evolution of legal thought: the collaboration between German, Italian, and French jurists in the reshaping of private law under authoritarian regimes. At its core stands the legal “axis Berlin–Rome”, where, starting in 1936, an ideologically driven departure from the liberal model of private law began to take shape.