IMC 2019: Sessions

Session 1006: Good Laws and Bad Customs

Organiser:	Anthony Perron, Department of History, Loyola Marymount University, California
Moderator/Chair:	Stefan Esders, Friedrich-Meinecke-Institut, Freie Universität Berlin
Paper 1006-a	Mala consuetudo: The Birth of Customs in Roman Times (Language: English) Soazick Kerneis, Centre d'Histoire et d'Anthropologie du Droit, Université Paris Nanterre Index terms: Anthropology, Law
Paper 1006-b	Mala consuetudo, Corruption, and Legal Strategy in Canon Law (Language: English) Anthony Perron, Department of History, Loyola Marymount University, California Index terms: Canon Law, Law
Paper 1006-c	Civic Ordinances and Bad Customs in Medieval and Early Modern Britain (Language: English) Esther Liberman Cuenca, Department of History, Fordham University, New York Index terms: Charters and Diplomatics, Law
Abstract	The legal history of the early West can be seen as a dialogue between customary and written law (often read as the triumph of the latter over the former). While much scholarship has examined custom as a source of written law, the critique of 'bad custom' (mala consuetudo) in the jurisprudence of premodern Europe remains to be fully explored. The papers in this panel will approach the question of 'bad custom' in three distinct contexts and time periods: Roman law in Late Antiquity, canon law in the 12th and 13th centuries, and town law in the Late Middle Ages.