Serge Dauchy

Heikki Pihlajamäki

Albrecht Cordes

Dave de Ruysscher

Stefania Gialdroni

"Citizenship is a concept that has changed and evolved through the ages. Our modern idea of citizenship as an individual status that implies a generalized ownership of civil, political and social rights is the end point of a long evolution. Bourgeois demands for individual freedoms towards the State brought about the dismantling and dissolution of the structure of feudal society, which was grounded on a community concept of citizenship. The new citizenship was equal for all the inhabitants of a community, whether it was a city, a nation, a state, or a country"--

Commerce, Citizenship, and Identity in Legal History

W. Hamilton Bryson

Matthew C. Mirow

Ratio decidendi is a technical legal term of art in Anglo-American jurisprudence, a concept opposed to the idea of obiter dictum. Ratio decidendi is the reason of the judge in coming to a judicial decision in a lawsuit presented to the court by the litigants for an official decision. Obiter dictum is whatever else a judge might say in passing. This concept of ratio decidendi operated very differently in the different nations of Western Europe and their former colonies at different periods of early-modern history as is demonstrated in the first volume (25/1) which was published in 2006.The second volume focuses on a specific aspect of ratio decidendi: the use by the courts of foreign law as the basis of their decisions when appropriate to the issues to be decided in a particular case brought to them by the litigants. The term foreign law refers to law that is not part of the law binding upon the court, in other words law outside the court's system of jurisprudence. Thus, one must consider what is domestic law in order to discern what is foreign to, or outside of, it. These comparative essays thus center on what law is foreign in various continental and Anglo-American legal systems from the Middle Ages until the 20th century and how it supports legal arguments and decisions.

Guiding Principles of Judicial Decisions. Vol. 2: 'Foreign' Law

Ratio Decidendi

Dave De ruysscher

This volume brings together nine chapters that address the topic of the scale and size of companies, in both legal and economic history, in the Middle Ages, the Early Modern Period, and in the nineteenth century.

The Company in Law and Practice: Did Size Matter? (Middle Ages-Nineteenth Century)

Anthony Musson

Georges Martyn

Alain Wijffels

This volume surveys 150 law books of fundamental importance in the history of Western legal literature and culture. The entries are organized in three sections: the first dealing with the transitional period of fifteenth-century editions of medieval authorities, the second spanning the early modern period from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, and the third focusing on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The contributors are scholars from all over the world. Each ‘old book’ is analyzed by a recognized specialist in the specific field of interest. Individual entries give a short biography of the author and discuss the significance of the works in the time and setting of their publication, and in their broader influence on the development of law worldwide. Introductory essays explore the development of Western legal traditions, especially the influence of the English common law, and of Roman and canon law on legal writers, and the borrowings and interaction between them. The book goes beyond the study of institutions and traditions of individual countries to chart a broader perspective on the transmission of legal concepts across legal, political, and geographical boundaries. Examining the branches of this genealogical tree of books makes clear their pervasive influence on modern legal systems, including attempts at rationalizing custom or creating new hybrid systems by transplanting Western legal concepts into other jurisdictions.

150 Books that Made the Law in the Age of Printing

The Formation and Transmission of Western Legal Culture

Serge Dauchy

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