Ancient Legal History

Roman law in its final form, as compiled in Justinian's Corpus Iuris Civilis, builds the foundation of all continental European legal systems, and tends therefore to be studied in isolation, as the only source of our own legal thinking.

Unlike this idealized Roman Law of the romanistic tradition, the actual Roman law of History arose and evolved as one among many other Ancient legal traditions, which preceded it by centuries and even millennia. Legal History, thus, was already old when Roman law started its development. The course "Ancient Legal History" aims to explore these "other" legal traditions and their interplay with Roman law. Through examples taken from the Mesopotamic, Egyptian and Greek legal traditions, this course will focus on the actual legal practice of these Ancient cultures, handed down to us through innumerable documents, particularly clay tablets from Mesopotamia and papyri from Greek and Roman Egypt and the Near East.

In addition, the course will also look at problems that arose as a result of Roman expansion: In particular, how the Roman jurists, the Roman courts and the Imperial bureaucracy addressed a legal practice that, unlike in Italy, was in the provinces often still dominated by such non-Roman legal traditions.

Skript Ancient Legal History (PDF, 16 MB)