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IMC 2012: Sessions

Session 1018: Law and Legal Practice in Medieval Denmark

Wednesday 11 July 2012, 09.00-10.30

Sponsor:Centre for Studies in Legal Culture, Det Juridiske Fakultet, Københavns Universitet
Organiser:Helle Vogt, Center for Retskulturelle Studier, Det Juridiske Fakultet, Københavns Universitet
Moderator/Chair:Paul R. Hyams, Department of History, Cornell University / Independent Scholar, Oxford
Paper 1018-aDisputing Property in 13th- and 14th-Century Zealand: The Case of the Sorø Donation Book
(Language: English)
Kim Esmark, Department of Culture & Identity, Roskilde Universitet
Index terms: Anthropology, Charters and Diplomatics, Law
Paper 1018-bThe Power to Judge: Jurisdiction in Land Conflicts in Denmark in the 13th Century
(Language: English)
Helle Vogt, Center for Retskulturelle Studier, Det Juridiske Fakultet, Københavns Universitet
Index terms: Charters and Diplomatics, Law
Abstract

The papers will, each from their own angle, throw light on the interplay between law and legal practice in medieval Denmark.

Kim Esmark asks in his paper: how did lay and ecclesiastical nobles go about when they were disputing property, rights, and other kinds of material assets? How did new rules, institutions and ways of thinking about law affect litigants' strategies and the general patterns of conflict management? How did legal culture relate to changing socio-political structures and attempts to set up more fixed procedures and institutions?
Helle Vogt's paper is also about land conflicts, but unlike Esmark, who is a legal anthologist, she uses a classic legal historian method with focus on law and legal institutions, especially the courts, and her claim is that the widespread use of arbitration in cases where ecclesiastical institutions were involved shall not be interpreted as an alternative to but as a part of the law of procedure in canon law.