For a ‘printer-friendly’ version of the entire syllabus (pdf), click here.
|
|
LEGAL HISTORY:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
History 2080 (formerly 2126) |
Law 2166
|
|
Professor Donahue |
Spring, 2025 |
|
If you have not taken Medieval Studies 119 (=Law 2165) (or had equivalent preparation elsewhere), you should should watch the recorded lectures for the course (listed and linked here). Law students should sign up for an hour of ‘optional written work’, unless you are fulfilling your written-work reqirement in conjunction with this seminar. The sessions of this reading course will focus on the ‘primary readings’ listed below in the light of the ‘secondary readings’. The primary materials will come either from my ‘coursepack’, Documents on Continental Legal History (Mats. also called ‘course materials’), or from xeroxes or online documents that I will provide (referred to as ‘course website’). A research paper is not required (except for those law students who are doing their written-work requirment in conjunction with this seminar). Rather, you should prepare three five-page papers each focusing on one or more of the texts to be discussed in the seminar. (More on this requirement below under Papers.) |
|
|
| |
|
Syllabus: |
Normally, this syllabus is quite loose. I have in the past accommodated particular interests of the participants in the seminar. I’ll try to do that this year, too, but please let me know as soon as possible if there’s something that is not on this list that particularly interests you. Items in boldface in the primary readings will be the particular focus of the class. I’ve also tried to flag the particularly important secondary readings. The new calendar makes everything very tight. We really have to hit the ground running in the first session. What is listed below under Background generalities used to be a separate session, but that is no longer possible. I have either given you below the URL of a website where you can find the readings for the first class or I have posted them on the course website. Background generalities: Very quickly (we’ll spend some time on this in the first session) we need to review some basic history, some basic constitutional history, and some basic legal history. I have to assume that you have some acquaintance with these topics, but here’s one way of getting at them relatively painlessly. Two quick paperbacks on basic history: H. G. Keonigsberger, Medieval Europe, 400–1500 (1987); H. G. Koenigsberger, Early Modern Europe, 1500–1789 (1987). Two short, but not so quick books on legal history: James A. Brundage, Medieval Canon Law (London: Longman, 1996), 264 p. Manlio Bellomo, The Common Legal Past of Europe (Washington, DC: Catholic University, 1995), xix, 252 p. |
|
| |
|
The legacy of the ancient world: Primary reading: (1) Justinian’s Institutes (any translation will do, but you should read the contents, prooemium, bk. 1, titles 1–3 (hereafter 1.1–3), 1.9–10, and 2.1 in Latin to begin familiarizing yourself with Latin legal vocabulary). A complete translation of the Institutes may be found on the course website; of the various online versions of the Latin text The Latin Library has the cleanest html that I have found, but that in the Roman Law Library allows you to flip from the Latin to an English or French translation and back. Both seem to be relatively free of error. (2) Paul’s Letter to the Romans (any modern translation, e.g., New Revised Standard Version, New Jerusalem Bible, etc.) (3) Extracts from the NT on marriage (Mark 10:2–12; Luke 16:18; Matthew 5:31–32, 19:3–12; 1 Corinthians 7; Ephesians 5:21–6:9). Of the numerous Biblical websites, the one that I used to use is no longer available. I have set up the parallel translations on BibleGateway to do the Clementine Latin Vulgate, the Douay-Rheims-Challloner, and the NRSV. (4) The so-called ‘Canones Apostolorum’ (C.H. Turner (ed), Ecclesiae Occidentalis Monumenta Iuris Antiquissima. 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1899–1939), 1:2–34, or Migne, Patrologia latina [PL] 67.142–47. I have posted the latter on the course website; with an old, but more or less ok, English translation. Secondary reading: Barry Nicholas, An Introduction to Roman Law (Oxford: Clarendon, 1962), xiv, 281 p.; Jean Gaudemet, Les sources du droit de l’Église en occident du IIe au VIIIe siècle (Paris: CERF, 1985), 188 p. |
|
|
| |
|
The legacy of the early Middle Ages: Primary reading: (1) Æthelbert’s ‘Code’ (L. Oliver ed., The Earliest English Laws) (in course materials). We should start by having some fun. Bring your computer to class and set it to https://luna.manchester.ac.uk/luna/servlet/media/book/showBook/Man4MedievalVC~4~4~990378~142729. Focus in on the first folio of the Textus Roffensis, and compare what you see there with the modern edition on the course website. Having spent some time both at the Kent County Archives at Maidstone and at the Medway Archives at Strood, the manuscript is now back in Rochester Cathedral, where it bears the shefmark A.3.5. Take a look at the most recent description of the manuscript and ask whether it answers the questions the you were asking when you looked at manuscript itself. (2) The Burgundian ‘Codes’. The Lex romana burgundionum (Gundobad 506). The (Lex Burgundionum (1st rec. [first recension] before 516). Leges Burgundionum, ed. F. Bluhme (MGH Leges 3, 1863, repr. 1925); Leges Burgundionum, ed. L.R. von Salis (MGH Legum sec. 1, Leges nationum Germanicarum 2.1, 1892); Gesetze der Burgunden, F. Beyerle ed. (Germanenrechte Texte und Übersetzungen 10, 1936); The Burgundian Code, K. Drew trans. (1949) (lex Burgundionum only). Selections from Æthelbert and the lex Burgundionum dealing with women are available on the course website. (3) The ‘Tabulae’ from the Hispana (PL 84.23–91 or G. Martínez Díez, La collección canónica hispana (Madrid: Consejo Superior de investagaciones cientificas, 1966– ), 1:501–83 (you can ignore the ones in verse). (4) The sections on ‘anger’ and ‘envy’ from an Old Irish Penitential, (L. Bieler, The Irish Penitentials, Scriptores Latini Hiberniae, 5 (Dublin: The Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1963), 269–71, or J.T. McNeill and A.M. Gamer, Medieval Handbooks of Penance (New York: Columbia University Press, 1938), 164–65 (to be used only if you can’t find Bieler). (Available on the course website, from McNeill and Gamer.) (5) Pseudo-Anacletus Epist. 3, Pseudo-Zeppherinus Epist. 1, Psuedo Evaristus Epist. 1 (P. Hinschius, Decretales Psuedo-Isidorianae (Leipzig, 1863), 81–8, 131–3). (Available on the course website; you’ll need some time with this; the Latin is not easy.) (6) Nicholas I, Epist. ad consulta Bulgarorum c.3 (PL 119.980 or MGH, Epist. 6.2.569 (a slightly better text)). (Available on the course website [the print in the image is a bit fuzzy, but if you blow it up to 130% it’s quite legible].) (7) Burchard of Worms, Decretum bks. 7, 9, 17 (PL 140.778–87, 811–30, 918–34.) Secondary reading: Introductory material to Oliver, as above (you need the book for this); Landau, Peter. ‘Gefälschtes Recht in den Rechtssammlungen bis Gratian’, in Fälschungen im Mittelalter, Schriften der Monumenta Germaniae Historica, 33 (Hannover: Hahn, 1988), 2:11–49; Cyrille Vogel, Les ‘Libri Paenitentiales’, Typologie des sources du moyen âge, 27 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1978) mise à jour par A.J. Frantzen (id., 1985); Walter Ullmann, The Growth of Papal Government in the Middle Ages: A Study in the Ideological Relation of Clerical to Lay Power, 3d ed. (London: Methuen, 1970), 1–228. |
|
|
| |
|
The reform movement and Gratian’s Concordance of Discordant Canons: Primary reading: The Collection in 74 Titles (J. Gilchrist, Diuersorum patrum sententie siue Collectio in LXXIV titulos digesta, Monumenta Iuris Canonici [MIC], B: Corpus Collectionum, 1 (Città del Vaticano: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1973) (read English introduction by Gilchrist, the tabula, tit. 1–15, 62–4). [There is also an English translation by the same author The Collection in Seventy-Four Titles: A Canon Law Manual of the Gregorian Reform, Medieval Sources in Translation, 22 (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1980). Except for the introduction, these are available in the course materials. I have placed pdf’s of the Latin of tits. 62–4 on the course website.] Gratian Distinctio [D.] 1–20 (trans. James Gordley and Augustine Thompson, Gratian: The Treatise on Laws (Washington, DC: Catholic University Press, 1993)); C.27. q.2 (partial trans. in course materials; try to get some sense of what it says in the original). [There are two online editions of the Friedberg edition of Gratian, one from the Columbia University Library (in pdf format) and the other from the Bavarian State Library in Munich (in html format). I have placed pdfs of the latter for C.27 q.2 on the course website. The Latin of the some of the extracts (canons) is quite hard, but Gratian’s own Latin is quite easy to follow.] Secondary reading: Ullmann, Growth, pp. 229–457; Gérard Fransen, Les collections canoniques, Typologie des sources du moyen âge occidental, 10 (Turnhot: Brepols, 1973) mise à jour (id., 1985); Anders Winroth, The Making of Gratian’s Decretum (Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press, 2000). Stephan Kuttner, Harmony from Dissonance (Latrobe, PA: Archabbey Press, 1960), repr. S. Kuttner, The History of Ideas and Doctrines of Canon Law in the Middle Ages, Collected Studies Series, CS113 (London: Variorum Reprints, 1980), 1–16; S. Kuttner, ‘Research on Gratian: Acta and Agenda’, in P. Linehan (ed.), Proceedings of the Seventh International Congress of Medieval Canon Law, MIC C: Subsidia, 8 (Città del Vaticano: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana: 1988), 3–26. |
|
|
| |
|
Roman law from Irnerius to Accursius: Primary reading: Justinian’s Institutes [J.I.] 2.1.12–13 with the ordinary gloss; Digest [D.] 41.1.55, with the ordinary gloss [selections from the summae and quaestiones may be added]. This is a key class on how to read a gloss. Start with the Institutes text in a modern edition. (There’s a translation at the bottom if you need help.) Then go to an early modern printing that has the gloss laid out very much in the way that a manuscript would be. (Focus on the glosses for secs. 12–13.) The Latin is easy, but it’s cryptic, and the abbreviations may rack you up for a while. After a bit of getting used to, you probably should be able to make acceptable Latin out of it, except for the abbreviations of what is being cited. To help with this the course website has a memo called ‘How to Read a Gloss’. It is a pretty painstaking attempt to take you through the gloss, step by step, explaining how to read it. If you can do this in the Root Room of the HLS library, you will be ahead of the game, but even if you just do it at home, making use of the images, we should be able in the seminar session to get you to the point where you can do this by yourself either with printed books or with an online edition. WARNING: Sometimes glosses are just pretty straightforward expositions of the text. A few of these are. In my view, most of them are not. This is a tendentious reading of the text. Accursius is telling us that the text means something that it does not mean, or, at least, probably does not mean. The bottom-line question is why is Accursius doing this. We may not be able to get to D.41.1.55, but here is the modern text and translation and the early modern edition of the gloss. The course materials contain a full translation of both the text and the gloss with the cited passages given in an appendix. See if you can figure out what is being cited without looking at the course materials and then check your results against the course materials. Secondary reading: Review Bellomo, pp. 44–60, 89–117. Read P. Vinogradoff, Roman Law in Medieval Europe, 2d ed. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1929), 43–70; Stephan Kuttner, ‘The Revival of Jurisprudence’, in Renaissance and Renewal in the Twelfth Century, Robert L. Benson and Giles Constable ed. (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1982), 299–323; Charles Radding, The Origins of Medieval Jurisprudence: Pavia and Bologna (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988). |
|
|
| |
|
Decretists, decretals and decretal collections: Primary reading (I have omitted the simony material for class discussion this year, though there’s no reason why someone could not do a paper on it): Rufinus on C.1 q.1 and C.27 q.2 (Heinrich Singer, Die Summa Decretorum des Magister Rufinus (Paderborn: Schvningh, 1902), 196–224); Summa Coloniensis on C.1 q.1 and C.27 q.2 (Gérard Fransen and Stephan Kuttner, Summa ‘Elegantius in iure diuino’ seu Coloniensis, MIC A: Corpus Glossatorum, 1, 4 vols. (New York: Fordham U.P., 1969; Città del Vaticano: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1978; id., 1986; id., 1990), 2:1–48 and 4:1–57; Liber Extra [X] 4.16.2., 4.4.3, 4.1.15, 4.3.1, 4.12.2, 5.3.10–13, 15–24, 31–32 (in the Friedberg edition, Corpus iuris canonici, vol. 2); 1 Comp. 4.4.5(7), 4.4.6(8), 4.5.4(6), 2 Comp. 5.2.6 (in the Friedberg edition of the Compilationes antiquae (Leipzig: Tauchnitz, 1882)). Secondary reading: Gérard Fransen, Les décritales et les collections de décritales, Typologie des sources du moyen âge occidental, 2 (Trunhout: Brepols, 1972) mise à jour (id., 1985); I.S. Robinson, The Papacy, 1073–1198: Continuity and Innovation, Cambridge Medieval Textbooks (Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 1990). |
|
|
| |
|
The formation of Romano-canonical procedure (Bulgarus to Tancred): Primary reading: Tancred, Ordo 3.5–12 (Fridericus Bergmann, Pillii, Tancredi, Gratiae, Libri de iudiciorum odine (Gvttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1842), 222–48.) Secondary reading: Linda Fowler-Magerl, Ordo iudiciorum vel ordo iudiciarius: Begriff und Literaturgattung, Ius Commune, Sonderhefte, 19 (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1984); Knut Wolfgang Nörr, ‘Institutional Foundations of the New Jurisprudence’, in Renaissance and Renewal 324–38; Charles Donahue, ‘Proof By Witnesses in the Church Courts of Medieval England: An Imperfect Reception of the Learned Law’, in M. Arnold et al. ed., On the Laws and Customs of England: Essays in Honor of Samuel E. Thorne (Chapel Hill: Univ. NC Press, 1981), 127–58. Custumals on Marriage: Primary reading: Usatges de Barcelona ch. 1–5, 108, 147; Coutumes de Touraine-Anjou ch. 61, 56 (57); Beaumanoir chs. 598–600; 621–628, 1625, 1639. |
|
|
| |
|
Political Ideas of the Glossators: Primary reading (all these texts are short; they may found on the course website): Continuator of Otto of Morena (MGH, Scriptores 18 (1863) 607); Azo Summa Codicis 3.13; C.7.37.3 (with the gloss); D.14.2.9 (with the gloss); Odofredus on D.2.13; Odofredus on C.7.37.3; Hostiensis on X 1.7.3, 1.7.1, 1.7.2, 3.8.4, 3.34.7, 3.32.7, 3.35.6, 5.31.8; D.1.3.31 and J.I. 2.6 (with the gloss); C.1.14(17) (with the gloss); Johannes Monachus on Extrav. comm. 2.3.1. Secondary reading: Kenneth Pennington, The Prince and the Law (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993); Brian Tierney, The Crisis of Church and State, 1050–1300 (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1964) (read the introductions to the documents if you have not already done so). Custumals on the King Primary reading: Bracton on Kingship (extracts). Bracton is not the only writer in this tradition to write on this topic. Extracts in translation from Pierrre de Mornay, Marinus de Caramanico, and Beaumanoir may be found in § XI.C.4, C.6, and C.7 of the course materials. Why Did Bologna Happen? A discussion based on a collection of ‘explanations’ for Bologna found on the outline. All the boldfaced materials for this session may be found on the course website. |
|
|
| |
|
Lawyers and politics in the later middle ages: a conciliar moment Primary reading: Boniface VIII ‘Unam sanctam’ (1302), Extrav. comm. 1.8.1 (course website), trans. in Church and State through the Centuries: A Collection of Historic Documents with Commentaries, Sidney Z. Ehler and John B. Morrall trans. and eds. (London: Burns & Oates, 1954), pp. 89–92 (Ehler and Morall is available online with your Haravrd ID); Clement V ‘Meruit’ (1306), Extrav. comm. 5.7.2, trans. in Ehler and Morall, 92–3; Council of Constance ‘Sacrosancta’ (29 May 1415), COD 416–17; ‘Frequens’ (1417), COD 438–9, trans. in Ehler and Morall, 104–6; Council of Basel ‘Prospexit Dominus de excelso’ (July, 1439), Mansi 29.179, trans. in Ehler and Morall, 121–5; Pius II ‘Execrabilis’ (1460), in Cherubini (ed.), Magnum Bullarium Romanum 1:368, trans. in Ehler and Morall; extracts from Nicholas of Cusa, De concordantia catholica. The Catholic Concordance, Paul Sigmund trans. (Cambridge: CUP, 1991) (course website). Nicholas himself was not proud of his Latin. His modern translator is more blunt: ‘defective knowledge of Latin’. One should, perhaps, be more charitable. The work was written very quickly, and not, so far as we can tell, ever revised for ‘publication’. But it’s a lot easier to work with the translation, the product of many years of scholarly effort. Secondary reading: Brian Tierney, Foundations of the Conciliar Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge, 1955); last essays in J.H. Burns (ed), The Cambridge history of medieval political thought c. 350–c. 1450 (Cambridge 1988). |
|
|
| |
|
The Formation of the ius commune: Accursius to Baldus I: Procedure. Primary reading: Albertus Gandinus on witnesses (ed. H. Kantorowicz, in Albertus Gandinus und das Strafrecht der Scholastik, 2 (1926) 69–72). Available on the course website. Bartlous on Ad reprimendum, Corpus Iuris Civilis, Constitutiones extravagantes (Lyon 1604), vol. 4, col. 132–159. Available on the course website. The Formation of the ius commune: Accursius to Baldus II: Wild Animals: Primary reading: Bartolus on D.41.1.1, 5, Opera omnia (Venice 1596) 5.1:70rb); Bartolus on mills (repetitio on D.43.12.2 in Opera omnia (Venice 1596) 5.1:135ra–137ra). Available on the course website. A partial translation will also be found on the course website. We will focus in class on those parts of the Latin that are translated. The Formation of the ius commune: Accursius to Baldus III: Dealing with the other. Primary reading: Bartolus on conflicts of laws, ¶¶ 13–51 of his repetitio on C.1.1.1. Available on the course website in a remarkable transciption with the cited cases in the notes done by Andy Barry in this class. There is no really acceptable translation of this repetitio, but Andy’s transcription makes it quite easy to follow the Latin. If you get in trouble, the translation by J. A. Clarence Smith, in AJLH (1970) 157–183, 247–276 (course website) may be some help, but it is made difficult to use by the fact that Smith began by translating the comment by Bartolus on D.1.3.32 and did not repeat the translation in his translation of the comment on C.1.1.1 when Bartolus repeated his earlier comment. We will probably not get to the end of this in this class; we probably will start it. Secondary reading: Review Bellomo, 118–61; read Francesco Calasso, Medio evo del diritto (Milano, 1954). For Bartolus on the conflicts of laws, see N. Hatzimihail, ‘Bartolus and the Conflict of Laws’, RHDI 60 (2007) 11–79 (course website); N. Hatzimihail, ‘Pre-Classical Conflict of Laws’, Harvard Law School S.J.D. dissertation, September, 2002, ch. 4. |
|
|
| |
|
|
The ius commune in action: cases, case-reports and consilia with a focus on marriage: Primary reading: Ely Act Book, Case no. 330 (1380) (course website); Decisio (Holy Roman Rota, 1360 X 1365) (in Bernardus de Bosqueto, Decisiones antiquiores [Cologne, 1581]), 627–8; Nicholaus de Tudeschis, Consilium 2.79 (Stante statuto) (course website) (in id., Consilia (Venice, 1569), fol. 162v; Nicholaus de Tudeschis, Consilium 1.1 (Facti contintentia) (course website) (in id., Consilia (Lyons, 1562), fol. 2ra–vb. The images here are not from the Lyons edition but from a lovely incunabulum held by the library of the university of Darmstadt. You really ought to try to make sense of these on the basis of the early modern printings, but if you run into trouble there are relatively full translations of these items in the course materials. Secondary reading: M.M. Sheehan, ‘The Formation and Stability of marriage in the Fourteenth Century: Evidence of an Ely Register’, Mediaeval Studies 33 (1971) 228–63; Charles Donahue, ‘The Canon Law on the Formation of Marriage and Social Practice in the Later Middle Ages’, Journal of Family History 8 (summer 1983) 144–58; Julius Kirshner, ‘Maritus Lucretur Dotem Uxoris Sue Premortue in Late Medieval Florence’, ZRG (KA) 108 (77) (1991) 111–55. |
|
| |
|
Legal Humanism: Primary reading: Pierre Pithou on the Collatio, (course website). Humanistic Latin is a bear. Professor Elizabeth Brown, who is much better at French humanistic Latin than I am, and I took a crack at translating the dedication, which is attached to the original in the pdf. Jean Bodin on the Emperor and the Horse (course website). The French edition of the Six Livres de la Ripublique is the one that everyone uses. I think we should deal with it in translation. Secondary reading: First essays in J.H. Burns, ed., The Cambridge history of political thought, 1450–1700 (Cambridge 1991); D. R. Kelley, History, Law and the Human Sciences (London: Variorum Reprints, 1984); Myron P. Gilmore, Argument from Roman Law in Political Thought, 1200–1600, by (Cambridge, MA: HUP, 1941); J. N. Figgis, Studies in Political Thought from Gerson to Grotius, 2d ed. (Cambridge: CUP, 1916) (many times reprinted) (available online through Google). |
|
|
| |
|
Dealing with the other– (concluded). See Week 9. Add: Victoria on the Indies Primary reading: The first relectio from Franciscus de Victoria (Francisco de Vitoria), De Indis et de iure belli relectiones (course website). Most of what is contained in the packet is the translation from the The Classics of International Law series. I have included at the beginning a few pages in Latin from the original edition (1556). There is another translation (it may not be complete) in the Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought series. Secondary reading: James Muldoon, Popes, lawyers, and infidels : the church and the non-Christian world, 1250–1550 (Philadelphia: U. Penn. Press, 1979). |
|
|
| |
|
You should prepare three five-page papers each focusing on one or more of the texts to be discussed in the course. (As the semester goes on we can broaden the texts to include texts in which you are interested but which we will not be discussing in class.) The papers should offer an idea supported by an analysis of the text and by appropriate external evidence. You should prepare a draft of your paper before (preferably) or shortly after we take up your text in class. I will comment on your draft, and in the light of the comments, you should prepare a final draft. The final drafts are due by the end of the FAS reading period (Fri., May. 09). Here are some examples of suitable paper topics (all of these have been successful paper topics in the past):
|
|
|
|
[Home Page] [Syllabus] [Information and Announcements]
URL: http://www.law.harvard.edu/faculty/cdonahue/courses/lhsemclh/syllabus/index.html
last modified:
10/22/24
Copyright ) 2011–2025.
Charles Donahue, Jr.
