Skip to main content

IMC 2019: Sessions

Session 250: Law as Social Practice

Monday 1 July 2019, 14.15-15.45

Organiser:Silke Schwandt, Fakultät für Geschichtswissenschaft, Philosophie und Theologie, Universität Bielefeld
Moderator/Chair:Mia Münster-Swendsen, Institut for Kommunikation og Humanistisk Videnskab, Roskilde Universitet
Paper 250-aRoman, Canon, Merchants' Law: Merchants' Representation in Late Medieval Antwerp
(Language: English)
Ulla Kypta, Historisches Seminar, Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt am Main
Index terms: Economics - Trade, Law, Social History
Paper 250-bLaw, Its Literary Imagination, and Manuscript Materiality in Old Norse Literature
(Language: English)
Roland Scheel, Skandinavisches Seminar, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
Index terms: Language and Literature - Scandinavian, Law
Abstract

The goal of this session is to provide a praxeological perspective on law and to explore how law was shaped by the people who used it. The two papers show two situations that differ with regard to time and place: First, Scandinavia in the High Middle Ages, and second, Antwerp in the late Middle Ages. In each case, law was not created by studying ancient texts alone, but rather in concrete situations as a solution to daily problems. However, influential legal traditions like Roman and Canon law played an important role as a point of reference or delineation, as sources of ideas or legitimization. In Scandinavia, knowledge on law and legal dealings from oral tradition and foreign texts was adapted to current discourse in action-centred saga narrative. In late medieval Antwerp, merchants took the concept of representation, rooted in Roman and Canon law, and transformed it according to their needs.