Reassessing Legal Humanism and Its Claims ─ Petere Fontes?

Legal humanism has become deeply entrenched in most modern works on European legal history from the 17th century onwards and has been accepted with such blind faith by many modern scholars that few have challenged it. As a result, it has been used to substantiate larger claims about the death of Roman law, the separation between the golden age of a pan-European medievalius commune and the fragmented reception of Roman law into the nation states of Europe, and the relevance of 'dogmatic' Roman law as opposed to 'antiquarian' Roman law.

Now, the traditional grand narratives of European legal history have begun to be questioned, to the extend that the nature and legacy of legal humanism now deserve closer scrutiny. Building on the groundbreaking work by Douglas Osler, who has been critical of the traditional narratives, this volume interrogates the orthodox views regarding legal humanism and its legacy.

Fundamentally reassessing the nature and impact of legal humanism on the narratives of European legal history, this volume brings together the foremost international experts in related fields of legal and intellectual history to debate the central issues.

Paul J. du Plessis is Senior Lecturer in Civil Law and Legal History at the University of Edinburgh. His research focuses predominantly on the multifaceted and complex set of relationships between law and society in a historical context. He is the editor of the critically acclaimed New Frontiers: Law and Society in the Roman World(Edinburgh University Press, 2013). He is the co-editor, with John W. Cairns, ofThe Creation of the Ius Commune: From Casus to Regula(Edinburgh University Press, 2010) and Beyond Dogmatics: Law and Society in the Roman World (Edinburgh University Press, 2007).

John W. Cairns is Professor of Civil Law at the University of Edinburgh. His research interests include law and the Enlightenment, the history of Scots law, codification in Louisiana, and law and slavery. He is the editor (with Paul J du Plessis) of Beyond Dogmatics: Law and Society in the Roman World (Edinburgh University Press, 2007) and of The Creation of theIus Commune: From Casus to Regula (Edinburgh University Press, 2010).