News and Notices

In his research project, ,A Critical Reappraisal of Legal Positivism’, Luke Kelland aims to reassess foundational assumptions in legal positivist theory. Integrating legal theory and the history of jurisprudence, this project examines the guiding role of law in shaping human behavior and questions the universal aspirations of legal positivist theories. By challenging core concepts such as the necessity of conceptual analysis for defining legal validity, the research creates a platform to critique the methodological underpinnings of legal positivism. This project seeks to identify alternative frameworks and approaches that may offer more comprehensive insights, addressing the current gap in positivist theory's capacity to encompass diverse jurisprudential perspectives. more

Aden Knaap, a recent graduate of Harvard University, has been awarded the Max Planck-ASLH Dissertation Prize for his dissertation entitled ,Judging the World: International Courts and the Origins of Global Governance, 1899-1971‘. The prize recognises his meticulously researched work, which traces the history and development of international courts from the first efforts in 1899 to the establishment of today's international legal institutions after the Second World War. Knaap's work offers a fresh perspective by highlighting the pivotal role of international court initiatives in the early twentieth century, a period often overlooked in narratives of global governance. more

Valerian Klein's research project, The Legal Construction of Credit Money, examines the role of law in the formation and regulation of credit money. Integrating multidisciplinary legal theory and private law theory, this project analyzes how credit money—primarily created by commercial banks in the Euro area through loan issuance—constitutes the majority of the money supply. By viewing money as a socially constructed practice framed by law, the project sheds light on the legal mechanisms that shape money creation and their potential impact on financial stability and social inequality. This research addresses a key gap by exploring the legal structure behind credit money, focusing on how regulatory changes may influence distribution and economic justice. more

As part of the Frankfurter Rechtshistorische Abendgespräche series, Saskia Lettmaier’s lecture, ,Marriage and Madness: The Origins of the Marriage of Lunatics Act (1742),, explores the historical context and legal significance of the 1742 Act—a pivotal yet understudied British statute. Integrating legal and social history, the project examines why this law, which voided marriages involving individuals deemed "lunatics," was enacted as a general statute, predating the well-known Hardwicke Marriage Act. Her research addresses legislative intervention in marriage, societal attitudes toward mental incapacity in 18th-century England, and the socio-political forces that influenced the Act’s passage. This interdisciplinary approach fills a gap in legal history, analyzing social and political motivations behind early marriage laws affecting those with mental incapacity. more

On the 7^th and 8^th of October 2024, the Max Planck European Law Group held its Third Annual Conference funded by Max Planck Law on the theme of ‘Equality in an Unequal Europe? Assessing Anti-Discrimination Law in Context’ at the Harnack Haus in Berlin. The presentations focused on key aspects of European anti-discrimination law in both the EU and European Convention on Human Rights frameworks, offering diverse legal perspectives on contemporary challenges. Topics included the role of equality in the effectiveness of the horizontal application of EU law, structural disadvantages in international law and in national and European legal frameworks.  more

The recent issue of our Institute’s journal Rechtsgeschichte – Legal History (Rg) presents high-level research contributions and candid reviews of books on topics that are relevant for the field of legal history, in Germany and worldwide. Three essays are dedicated to the legal history of slavery in the early modern and modern periods: Carlo Bersani traces the European legal discourse on servi and personae (16th–18th century). Matilde Cazzola looks at the efforts to abolish slavery in British Caribbean, and Tamar Herzog analyses some aspects of the historiography of the legal history of slavery, a field so far dominated by Atlantic history. The issue is now available in print from the Vittorio Klostermann publishing house, and online in Open Access via the journal's website. more

Jasper Kunstreich‘s research project ,The Economics of Legal History‘, aims to integrate economic theory and history with legal history, offering a multidisciplinary approach to understanding the evolution of legal frameworks. His project is grounded in the idea that Europe's transformation into modern capitalism was driven by institutional and legal changes, aligning with the principles of New Institutional Economics. The research highlights the significant role of law in public choice theories and the emerging field of law and political economy, which often draw on historical legal precedents. However, legal history has yet to fully engage in this interdisciplinary dialogue. more

On Saturday, September 28, the mpilhlt will take part in the first Frankfurt Science Festival and present itself together with the regional science institutions networked in the Frankfurt Alliance. The overarching theme is “Transformations”: What are the major challenges of our time, where are new ideas and concepts needed, what is already being researched, what can already be shown by way of example? The mpilhlt takes up the topic of “Fundamental Rights”: Are fundamental rights a matter of course or a question of luck? Spin our wheel of fortune and travel to another time and place where different rules applied. Maybe you will witness the origin of freedom of speech, or perhaps lose the right of inviolability of the home. Discuss the history of fundamental rights with our team. more

Volume 24 of the Global Perspectives on Legal History aims to contribute to the understanding of the development of knowledge on the ‘criminal question’ as it circulated to and from the Argentinian context between the late nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries. Around 1880, new perspectives on crime and punishment, initially also based on ideas imported from European contexts (e.g. the ‘Positivist School’ in Italy), began to be discussed in Argentina; this challenged the fundamental arguments in the realm of criminal law. Emphasising how the transnational circulation of ideas contributed to this transformation, the collected articles analyse the dynamics of adaptation, rejection and interaction between the Global North and the Global South. more

The 44. Rechtshistorikertag (the annual conference of Germanophone legal historians) is taking place in Frankfurt am Main from 16 to 20 September this year, organised by the Institut für Rechtsgeschichte of the Goethe-Universität. Dedicated to Die Sprache der Quellen, its sessions will discuss the language and mediality of legal historical sources. Another focus will be the chances offered as well as the risks posed to legal history by the current transformations in the digital world (such as by AI). In addition to the keynote lectures and panels, time has been set aside on Wednesday, 18 September for presentations of research projects and for smaller discussion sessions on 'problems and forms of legal history'.  more

The Förderpreis europäische Verwaltungsgeschichte (Prize for European Administrative History), founded by Erk Volkmar Heyen, is awarded to early-career academics. It both honours excellent research already completed and encourages a new research project. The 2024 prize is awarded to Marion Dotter for her dissertation on the practice of nobilitisation in the Austro-Hungarian monarchy (‘Adelspolitik in der späten Habsburgermonarchie. Kulturen des Entscheidens in der Nobilitierungspraxis während der Regierungszeit Kaiser Franz Joseph I. [1848–1916]‘). The prize will fund a project on the petitioning practices of the Catholic Church (‘Private administrative systems between nation, emotion and charity. Supplications to church organisations in the 19th century’).  more

Challenging traditional historiographical paradigms and proposing new research directions, Benedetta Albani's research project examines the role of the Congregations of Cardinals within the Roman Curia. The project explores the hypothesis of a persistent Roman model of governance that emerged in the late Middle Ages and has evolved, with significant interruptions and variations, until the present day. To date, scholars have mainly focused on individual congregations, neglecting their interrelationships. The primary aim of the project is to provide the first comprehensive and integrated approach to the study of the Roman Curia and its various bodies. more

Once again, we were delighted to welcome a group of young scholars from all over the world to Frankfurt for the Max Planck Summer Academy for Legal History. It has been a privilege to have had the opportunity to engage with such great people, whose dedication and insights have enriched our understanding of the complex interplay between the form and substance of law. This year's overarching research theme was 'The Mediality and Materiality of Law'. ‘Mediality’ and ‘materiality’ are important keywords in historical and cultural studies debates. Legal scholarship has also been devoting a great deal of thought to the material and medial conditions of the production and enforcement of law. Legal history has been pursuing this avenue of research for quite some time, with noteworthy examples including legal archaeology and the long-standing discussions on orality and writing, for example in medieval legal history. more

As legal frameworks struggle to keep pace with rapid technological advances and evolving societal norms, the urgency of linking academic research to real-world societal issues has never been greater. The field of law significantly benefits from the critical insights provided by researchers. We caught up with Anselm Küsters, who has just been awarded the Ludwig Erhard Prize for Economics Writing (Ludwig-Erhard-Förderpreis für Wirtschaftspublizistik). We talked to him about the need for experts to amplify their voices, the feedback his articles have generated, and his knack for finding topics that interest both academic and social audiences. more

Matilde Cazzola's research project examines the role of the 'protection' framework in the British colonial state, focusing on how it facilitated the governance and profitability of the mobility of indentured labourers and indigenous peoples. It highlights that this mobility was regulated and secured by law to remove disorderly or criminal elements, closely linking protection with policing and crime prevention from the early nineteenth century. She also explores the use of protection as a justification for the collection of social knowledge about these groups, which informed social policies and legal measures. more