History of Medieval and Modern Law
- Overview
- Assessment methods
- Learning objectives
- Contents
- Full programme
- Delivery method
- Teaching methods
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Not required. It is advisable a knowledge of Private Law and Constitutional Law.
Final Examination:
Oral and/or written examination.
The actual degree of knowledge reached by the students will be assessed with a final oral examination about the entire course, and the mark will be in fractions of 30. The examining board is established according to the current academic rules. The final examination will run as follow: first, a question of general contents; then a number of questions on more specific issues, as to ascertain the acquisition of the notions requested (60%); the appropriate understanding and use of legal terminology (20%), the ability in logic and discourse structuring (20%). Students, as they reply to questions, should respect the linkage of the historical events as well as the historical evolution of principles and rules of law, and should demonstrate to be able to make connections and comparisons between the various subject treated.
This course aims to offer an overview of the evolution of the Italian and European Law from the fall of the Roman Empire to the XVIII century. The course aims to highlight the various perspectives of the law over time, emphasizing the connections between the legal aspects and socio-political aspects in different historical contexts. It will highlight some controversal aspects of justice, criminal law, civil law, constitutional law.
At the end of the course the student must know how to move with appropriate language in the different historical periods, grasping their peculiarities in terms of institutions, sources of law, role of law and jurist.
The Course moves from a overview of the Justinian Corpus Iuris Civilis, basis of the renewal of law in the Middle Ages, and then moves on to the system of rights of the early Middle Ages until the eighteenth century:
the Justinian Corpus Iuris Civilis and the Roman Empire; the system of law in the High Middle Ages and in the Roman-German Kingdoms; the birth of the institutions and the law of the Catholic Church; the Holy Roman Empire; the feudal system; the city-states and the first monarchic States; the Universities and the rediscovery of Justinian Corpus Iuris, with the Glossators first and the Commentators later; the “consilia” and the “communis opinio”; the Humanism and the so-called “Scuola Culta”; the absolutistic States and the Great Tribunals; the doctrine of Natural Law; the XVIII century.
For each period, the legal sources and the role of law and jurist in the organization of society and institutions will be highlighted.
The course starts from a quick examination of the Justinian Compilation, the basis of medieval legal renewal, to then move on to the system of the rights of the High Middle Ages, mainly customary, to the System of common law up to the Ancient Regime, still strongly connoted in a jurisprudential sense but in which there is no lack of important legislative expressions.
The Justinian Corpus Juris and the Roman Empire will therefore be dealt with quickly; the culture and law of the barbarian peoples; the fiefdom; the institutions and the law of the Church; the early medieval culture; the economic and cultural rebirth of the eleventh and twelfth centuries with the concomitant formation of city municipalities and other forms of association born within them, such as universities and corporations; the lordships and the first monarchical states. The birth and development of the ius commune and canon law.
For each period, the legal sources and the role of law and the jurist in the organization of society and institutions will be highlighted.
It will deal with the high Middle age and the rediscovery of Justinian law from the sec. XI-XII by the Glossators; of the more complex scientific elaborations of the Commentators; the concomitant articulation of the law and organization of the Church and its contribution to "secular" law; the opening of the new legal science towards legal sources that are not purely Romanistic, such as city statutes, and the relevant council activity aimed at practice (disputes between individuals and advice to political bodies); the novelties of the Scuola Culta both in terms of the legal method and the philosophical-political approach to the function of law; the emergence of the modern state and the process of centralization of powers and its institutions, such as the Grand Courts; of the study of the law schools that between the sec. XV-XII (Salamanca School and Natural Law); of the most important legislative compilations of sovereigns on the threshold of codifications.
Lessons will be frontal or online (Microsot Teams) and held whit PowerPoint; sources and documents will be uploaded to e-learning platform.
Antonio Padoa Schioppa, Storia del diritto in Europa, Bologna, il Mulino, any edition, pp. 7-387.