Rechtsgeschichte – Legal History
type: channel
description: Rechtsgeschichte – Legal History (Rg) ist die Zeitschrift des Max-Planck-Instituts für Rechtsgeschichte und Rechtstheorie, herausgegeben von den Direktoren Marietta Auer, Thomas Duve und Stefan Vogenauer. Sie deckt die ganze Bandbreite des Fachs ab und beschränkt sich nicht auf bestimmte Epochen oder Rechtsgebiete. Ihr besonderes Profil erhält sie durch die am Institut durchgeführte rechtshistorische Forschung zur Rechtsgeschichte Europas, den Welten des Common Law und der iberischen Monarchien. Die Zeitschrift ist international und multilingual ausgerichtet. Sie trägt damit der Vielfalt von Rechts- und Forschungskulturen Rechnung. Jedes Heft enthält auf einen thematischen »Fokus« bezogene Beiträge, einen »Debatten«- oder »Forum«-Teil mit pointierten Diskussionsbeiträgen sowie ausgewählte herausragende Beiträge zu rechtshistorischen Themen von allgemeinem Interesse in der Rubrik »Recherche«. Die Rubrik »Kritik« versammelt Rezensionen aus der rechtshistorischen Forschung. Die Zeitschrift erscheint seit 2002 im Klostermann Verlag, zunächst zweimal jährlich in gedruckter Form unter dem Titel Rechtsgeschichte. Seit Ausgabe 20 (2012) wird sie einmal jährlich zeitgleich als gedruckte Ausgabe im Klostermann Verlag und text- und seitenkonkordant online im Open Access publiziert. Verbunden mit dieser Umstellung wurde die Mehrsprachigkeit der Zeitschrift ausgebaut, was sich in der Namenserweiterung Rechtsgeschichte – Legal History ausdrückt. Aktuelle und zurückliegende Hefte können weiterhin als gedruckte Ausgaben über den Buchhandel oder direkt beim Verlag bezogen werden. Rechtsgeschichte – Legal History ist im Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) gelistet. Die nächste Ausgabe (Rg 34) erscheint im September 2026.
publisher: Max-Planck-Institut für Rechtsgeschichte und Rechtstheorie
language: de-DE
publication name: Rechtsgeschichte – Legal History
issn: 1619-4993
items: Editorial
items: Normative Strukturen der Industriellen Beziehungen im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert – Problemaufriss und Einführung
items: Die Aushandlung eines Hausgesetzes im sächsischen Chemnitz 1834
items: Industrielle und normative Beziehungen in der Hüttenstadt Neunkirchen / Saar von der Ära Stumm bis in die 1930er Jahre
items: Vergütung der Treue. Die Dienstaltersprämierung zwischen Gepﬂogenheit und Formalisierung am Beispiel württembergischer Unternehmen im späten 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhundert
items: Das abgesperrte Normativitätsregime: Arbeit und Kapital im Ruhrbergbau bis 1918/19
items: Die Aushandlung betrieblicher Regeln nach dem Betriebsrätegesetz von 1920
items: Industrielle Beziehungen und Frauenarbeit. Normativität in der westdeutschen Textil- und Bekleidungsindustrie 1960–1990
items: Flags of Many Colours
items: To Have and to Hold
items: The Older, the Better
items: The Other Side of Conversion
items: Una ﬁnestra digitale sul mondo di Christophe Plantin
items: (Un)Freiheiten der gallikanischen Kirche – neu vermessen
items: La vida sorprendente de la costumbre
items: Latinistas indígenas en América
items: Guiding Confessors in 16th-Century Mexico
items: Shaping Republics in the Spanish Empire
items: A residencia for Indigenous Polities in North America
items: Turning Colonization on Its Head
items: Cultures of Execution: Todesstrafen und Hinrichtungspraktiken in England 1660 bis 1900
items: Ceaselessly into the (Medical and Legal) Past
items: Damages for Adultery in English Legal History
items: Legal Pluralism as a Tool of Empire
items: Civil Rights: The Private Law Foundation
items: Tropical Inequalities
items: Conversations with Historians
items: A Who Is Who of Early Modern Legal Intellectuals in China
items: 120 Years of Chinese Administrative Law – Between Tradition and Rejuvenation
items: Back to the Origins of Modern Jurisprudence
items: Neues zu Jellineks altem »Ur(grund)recht«
items: Konzessionen an Konfessionen
items: An den Peripherien von Versailles
items: Hausfrau, Mutter, Kriegsverbrecherin
items: Francoist Repression Through a Legal Lens
items: Wie »Juris« in Kassel entstand
items: Historia Magistra Vitae
items: Klimakrisen vor der Klimakrise
items: Kritiklos
items: Was ist Recht? Eine Marginalie
items: The Politics of Time in Legal History: A Reﬂection on the Power of Graphic Narratives
items: Multilingualität und Recht in der Spätantike
items: Zwischen Pluralismus und Vereinheitlichung – Quellenperspektiven für die Geschichte des Arbeitsrechts
items: Zwischen Recht und Literatur: Die Kriminalfallsammlung des Neuen Pitaval (1842–1890) als Gegenstand digitaler Korpusanalysen
items: Historische Gerechtigkeit auf dem Rechtsweg? Walter Schwarz und die Zeitschrift Rechtsprechung zum Wiedergutmachungsrecht (1949–1981)

Editorial
type: item
description: Im September 2024 fand in Frankfurt am Main der 44. Rechtshistorikertag statt. Das Rahmenthema war »Die Sprache der Quellen«. Auch in dieser Ausgabe von Rechtsgeschichte – Legal History geht es um Sprache, um Quellen und um – das war ebenfalls ein Thema auf dem Rechtshistorikertag – neue Methoden der Quellenbearbeitung und -analyse. Im Recherche-Teil drucken wir zwei auf dem Rechtshistorikertag gehaltene Vorträge ab: Hartmut Leppin beschäftigt sich mit Multilingualität und Recht in der Spätantike und Thorsten Keiser mit Quellen zur Geschichte des Arbeitsrechts. Beide Vorträge machen auf ganz unterschiedlichen Feldern deutlich, wie eng die Frage, was wir als maßgebliche Quellen rechthistorischer Forschung ansehen, damit zusammenhängt, welchen Rechtsbegriﬀ wir unserer Arbeit zu Grunde legen. Hartmut Leppin nennt Rechtstexte solche, »die den Eindruck erwecken, dass sie allgemeine Normen zur autoritativen Regelung von Streitigkeiten bereitstellen und die daher normatives Wissen zum Ausdruck bringen«. Es geht ihm in seinem Beitrag dabei »nicht um Römisches Recht, sondern um Recht aus dem Römischen Reich, das eine Welt des rechtlichen Pluralismus war, bei der das Römische Recht als Recht der römischen Bürger eine zentrale Rolle spielte, aber von immer mehr Einwohnern des Römischen Reichs genutzt wurde, indes neben anderen Normativitätsregimen«. Vor allem anhand des Syrischen, des Koptischen und des Hebräischen zeigt er Translationsprozesse, die die Grenzen des Imperiums transzendierten. So wird sein Beitrag zu einer faszinierenden Miniatur einer Geschichte von Recht, das mit Rom verbunden war, aber in einem Prozess multilingualer Koproduktion transimperial weiterentwickelt wurde – eine, wie er selbst andeutet, »Dezentrierung der römischen Geschichte« durch den Blick auf scheinbar periphere Quellen und deren Sprachen. Thorsten Keisers Beitrag hat ebenfalls ein weitreichendes Anliegen: Er präsentiert eine »kleine Quellenkunde auf dem Gebiet der Arbeitsrechtsgeschichte«, der…
creator: Thomas Duve
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Autor/in https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-09-11
publication date: 2025-09-11
starting page: 5
ending page: 8
doi: 10.12946/rg33/005-008

Normative Strukturen der Industriellen Beziehungen im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert – Problemaufriss und Einführung
type: item
description: Labour law is more than just the sum of state legal norms. It also includes private rules set by companies, agreements between employers and employees, technical standards, established practices, fundamental ideas of fairness in labour relations, etc. These norms cannot be found in legal codes. They are scattered in archives, industry magazines, separate publications, etc. In many cases, they can only be identiﬁed by examining the historical practice of working life. Labour law is therefore not only the domain of lawyers; economic and social historians can also contribute to reconstructing the normative order of the world of work. The Focus »Normative Structures of Industrial Relations in the 19th and 20th Centuries«, which this text introduces, is an attempt to bring together the research interests of social and economic historians with those of legal historians in order to enrich the perspective of legal history.
creator: Peter Collin
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Autor/in https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-09-11
publication date: 2025-09-11
starting page: 100
ending page: 107
doi: 10.12946/rg33/100-107

Die Aushandlung eines Hausgesetzes im sächsischen Chemnitz 1834
type: item
description: Due to its successful machine manufacturing industry since the early 19th century, the city of Chemnitz has been considered the ›Saxon Manchester‹, industrialising relatively early in comparison to other German cities. With the introduction of factory work, industrialists saw the need to regulate labour, which they set down in writing in the form of house rules or factory regulations. These regulations, which unilaterally protected the property of the company, sparked protests among the newly emerging social class of industrial workers. Using the example of the ›house law‹ of the Haubold company, the article highlights the different perspectives on such regulations, explains the options available to the actors and thus presents an early example of the development of modern labour law.
creator: Johanna Wolf
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Autor/in https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-09-11
publication date: 2025-09-11
starting page: 109
ending page: 117
doi: 10.12946/rg33/109-117

Industrielle und normative Beziehungen in der Hüttenstadt Neunkirchen / Saar von der Ära Stumm bis in die 1930er Jahre
type: item
description: As one of the core sectors of German industrialisation, the iron and steel industry is considered a space particularly permeated by power. An economically, politically and socio-culturally strong entrepreneurial class set the rules and conditions within the sector. Elaborate hierarchies were often developed inside the individual companies. So-called works oﬃcials, masters, supervisors and foremen represented the interests of the company management on-site, that is, directly in the production process. Companies also formulated demands on their workforce outside the factory walls, however. Political and social conduct in the interest of the employer were among the company’s normative requirements; trade unions and other organisational forms of the political labour movement were under no circumstances to gain a foothold among the workforce. Despite all this, the normative setting in the iron and steel industry was by no means one-dimensional; the workers managed – admittedly within clearly deﬁned frameworks – to preserve or ﬁght for small pockets of freedom. If one reads the sources, written almost exclusively from the perspective of company management, »against the grain«, one can detect various forms of deﬁance, insubordination and civil disobedience in everyday company life. These were no revolutionary eﬀorts in the sense of a class struggle, but rather everyday »small autonomies«, for example with regard to working hours and conditions. The article discusses these issues using the case study of the Neunkirchen ironworks, a prominent company in the Saar industrial region. Karl Ferdinand Stumm, an economically, politically and socio-culturally highly ambitious entrepreneur, headed the company in the second half of the 19th century. But even in the »Kingdom of Stumm«, as the social-democratic labour movement’s press dubbed the Neunkirchen ironworks, the workforce occasionally sought and found small pockets of freedom.
creator: Fabian Trinkaus
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Autor/in https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-09-11
publication date: 2025-09-11
starting page: 119
ending page: 129
doi: 10.12946/rg33/119-129

Vergütung der Treue. Die Dienstaltersprämierung zwischen Gepﬂogenheit und Formalisierung am Beispiel württembergischer Unternehmen im späten 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhundert
type: item
description: The article deals with seniority bonuses in the context of corporate social policy and thus as an aspect of industrial labour relations. For companies, this type of bonus was one of many measures to retain the core workforce, but its symbolism was also intended to set expectations regarding employees’ work ethic, loyalty to the company and desired political behaviour. This article analyses the seniority bonus as the subject of an internal process of the production of normativity within companies. Using case studies from three Württemberg metalworking companies, it shows how gifts of money to long-serving employees became an established part of corporate culture. This was not primarily the result of active regulation by the management, but rather the outcome of the stabilisation of a practice that initially does not appear to have followed any ﬁxed rules. Therefore, habit and stable expectations, including on the part of employees, functioned as speciﬁc normative resources. As companies grew in size, the requirements for seniority bonuses as well as the amounts paid often became formalised. The article argues that this represented a process of »juridiﬁcation« at company level, as seemingly generally applicable and binding rules were established that provided both employees and employers with a framework of expectations and actions. Even though no legal entitlement to seniority bonuses was ever established, they became part of a detailed system of corporate regulations.
creator: Tim-Niklas Vesper
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Autor/in https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-09-11
publication date: 2025-09-11
starting page: 131
ending page: 142
doi: 10.12946/rg33/131-142

Das abgesperrte Normativitätsregime: Arbeit und Kapital im Ruhrbergbau bis 1918/19
type: item
description: This article examines the normative regime of the Ruhr mining industry since the 1850s, questioning the assumption that labour and capital directly faced each other in a struggle over working conditions and regulations. Instead, it demonstrates that the normative regime developed by the mine owners was designed to block the miners’ (and later the trade unions’) demands. The Ruhr syndicate created a highly diﬀerentiated organisational structure in order to forestall any possibility of negotiation with labour.
creator: Eva-Maria Roelevink
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Autor/in https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-09-11
publication date: 2025-09-11
starting page: 144
ending page: 154
doi: 10.12946/rg33/144-154

Die Aushandlung betrieblicher Regeln nach dem Betriebsrätegesetz von 1920
type: item
description: This article analyses the negotiation of company-level rules following the Works Council Act (Betriebsrätegesetz, BRG) of 1920 as a central element of co-determination in the early Weimar Republic. It focuses on workplace rules (Arbeitsordnungen) as an instrument of internal regulatory practice that now, for the ﬁrst time, legally required the formal participation of employee representatives. Using the Gelsenkirchen-based Boecker & Comp. division of the Gutehoﬀnungshütte (GHH) conglomerate as its case study, the article shows how company rules emerged as the result of complex negotiation processes involving employers, works councils, trade unions, employers’ associations and state authorities. Particular attention is given to disciplinary provisions, which were not only an expression of power relations within the workplace but also served as economic instruments of control. In a period marked by high labour turnover and a shortage of skilled workers, these rules helped to enforce discipline and stabilise productivity. The disputes over their formulation reveal how contested the question of disciplinary authority within the ﬁrm was, and how employers sought to preserve their autonomy despite the legal framework of co-determination. The study contributes to legal history by interpreting company-level co-determination as a conﬂict-driven process of normative production. It demonstrates how, in the early Weimar Republic, a complex structure of negotiated order within the company emerged, which oscillated between state regulation, collective autonomy and workplace practice.
creator: Matthias Ebbertz
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Autor/in https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-09-11
publication date: 2025-09-11
starting page: 156
ending page: 166
doi: 10.12946/rg33/156-166

Industrielle Beziehungen und Frauenarbeit. Normativität in der westdeutschen Textil- und Bekleidungsindustrie 1960–1990
type: item
description: This article examines the development of industrial relations in two typically female employment sectors, the textile and clothing industries. Until the mid-1960s, both industries were regarded as typical »boom industries« of the economic miracle, but then experienced a gradual decline. At the same time, the structure of the workforce changed: until the 1970s, it was mainly young women who worked in these sectors, who left the workforce when they got married. Since then, however, older and married women have increasingly been employed in the textile industries. While working conditions in the 1960s were still strongly paternalistic, industrial relations became more diverse and conﬂictual during the 1970s and 1980s. Fundamental questions about the value of women’s work were negotiated, such as whether women should be treated diﬀerently from men in the workplace, and whether their wages represented a signiﬁcant contribution to the household budget or merely a side income.
creator: Roman Köster
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Autor/in https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-09-11
publication date: 2025-09-11
starting page: 168
ending page: 180
doi: 10.12946/rg33/168-180

Flags of Many Colours
type: item
creator: Caspar Ehlers
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Autor/in https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-09-11
publication date: 2025-09-11
starting page: 184
ending page: 186
doi: 10.12946/rg33/184-186

To Have and to Hold
type: item
creator: Caspar Ehlers
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Autor/in https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-09-11
publication date: 2025-09-11
starting page: 186
ending page: 187
doi: 10.12946/rg33/186-187

The Older, the Better
type: item
creator: Caspar Ehlers
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Autor/in https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-09-11
publication date: 2025-09-11
starting page: 187
ending page: 188
doi: 10.12946/rg33/187-188

The Other Side of Conversion
type: item
creator: Kenneth Stow
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Autor/in https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-09-11
publication date: 2025-09-11
starting page: 189
ending page: 192
doi: 10.12946/rg33/189-192

Una ﬁnestra digitale sul mondo di Christophe Plantin
type: item
creator: Manuela Bragagnolo
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Autor/in https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-09-11
publication date: 2025-09-11
starting page: 193
ending page: 195
doi: 10.12946/rg33/193-195

(Un)Freiheiten der gallikanischen Kirche – neu vermessen
type: item
creator: Christoph H. F. Meyer
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Autor/in https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-09-11
publication date: 2025-09-11
starting page: 195
ending page: 197
doi: 10.12946/rg33/195-197

La vida sorprendente de la costumbre
type: item
creator: Robert C. Schwaller
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Autor/in https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-09-11
publication date: 2025-09-11
starting page: 198
ending page: 199
doi: 10.12946/rg33/198-199

Latinistas indígenas en América
type: item
creator: Caroline Cunill
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Autor/in https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-09-11
publication date: 2025-09-11
starting page: 200
ending page: 201
doi: 10.12946/rg33/200-201

Guiding Confessors in 16th-Century Mexico
type: item
creator: John F. Schwaller
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Autor/in https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-09-11
publication date: 2025-09-11
starting page: 202
ending page: 203
doi: 10.12946/rg33/202-203

Shaping Republics in the Spanish Empire
type: item
creator: Michelle McKinley
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Autor/in https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-09-11
publication date: 2025-09-11
starting page: 204
ending page: 205
doi: 10.12946/rg33/204-205

A residencia for Indigenous Polities in North America
type: item
creator: Hector Duenes
creator: Brian P. Owensby
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Autor/in https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-09-11
publication date: 2025-09-11
starting page: 205
ending page: 207
doi: 10.12946/rg33/205-207

Turning Colonization on Its Head
type: item
creator: Marya Svetlana T. Camacho
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Autor/in https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-09-11
publication date: 2025-09-11
starting page: 207
ending page: 209
doi: 10.12946/rg33/207-209

Cultures of Execution: Todesstrafen und Hinrichtungspraktiken in England 1660 bis 1900
type: item
creator: Karl Härter
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Autor/in https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-09-11
publication date: 2025-09-11
starting page: 210
ending page: 212
doi: 10.12946/rg33/210-212

Ceaselessly into the (Medical and Legal) Past
type: item
creator: Colm Peter McGrath
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Autor/in https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-09-11
publication date: 2025-09-11
starting page: 212
ending page: 214
doi: 10.12946/rg33/212-214

Damages for Adultery in English Legal History
type: item
creator: Saskia Lettmaier
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Autor/in https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-09-11
publication date: 2025-09-11
starting page: 214
ending page: 216
doi: 10.12946/rg33/214-216

Legal Pluralism as a Tool of Empire
type: item
creator: Assaf Likhovski
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Autor/in https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-09-11
publication date: 2025-09-11
starting page: 216
ending page: 218
doi: 10.12946/rg33/216-218

Civil Rights: The Private Law Foundation
type: item
creator: Robert J. Cottrol
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Autor/in https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-09-11
publication date: 2025-09-11
starting page: 218
ending page: 219
doi: 10.12946/rg33/218-219

Tropical Inequalities
type: item
creator: Karoline Marques Machado
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Autor/in https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-09-11
publication date: 2025-09-11
starting page: 219
ending page: 222
doi: 10.12946/rg33/219-222

Conversations with Historians
type: item
creator: Gustavo César Machado Cabral
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Autor/in https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-09-11
publication date: 2025-09-11
starting page: 223
ending page: 225
doi: 10.12946/rg33/223-225

A Who Is Who of Early Modern Legal Intellectuals in China
type: item
creator: Xinyi Hou
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Autor/in https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-09-11
publication date: 2025-09-11
starting page: 226
ending page: 227
doi: 10.12946/rg33/226-227

120 Years of Chinese Administrative Law – Between Tradition and Rejuvenation
type: item
creator: Sandra Michelle Röseler
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Autor/in https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-09-11
publication date: 2025-09-11
starting page: 228
ending page: 230
doi: 10.12946/rg33/228-230

Back to the Origins of Modern Jurisprudence
type: item
creator: Leonardo Ravaioli
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Autor/in https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-09-11
publication date: 2025-09-11
starting page: 230
ending page: 232
doi: 10.12946/rg33/230-232

Neues zu Jellineks altem »Ur(grund)recht«
type: item
creator: Oskar Walther
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Autor/in https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-09-11
publication date: 2025-09-11
starting page: 232
ending page: 234
doi: 10.12946/rg33/232-234

Konzessionen an Konfessionen
type: item
creator: Peter Collin
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Autor/in https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-09-11
publication date: 2025-09-11
starting page: 234
ending page: 238
doi: 10.12946/rg33/234-238

An den Peripherien von Versailles
type: item
creator: Michel Erpelding
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Autor/in https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-09-11
publication date: 2025-09-11
starting page: 238
ending page: 242
doi: 10.12946/rg33/238-242

Hausfrau, Mutter, Kriegsverbrecherin
type: item
creator: Sascha Ziemann
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Autor/in https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-09-11
publication date: 2025-09-11
starting page: 242
ending page: 244
doi: 10.12946/rg33/242-244

Francoist Repression Through a Legal Lens
type: item
creator: Jordi Cerdà Serrano
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Autor/in https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-09-11
publication date: 2025-09-11
starting page: 245
ending page: 246
doi: 10.12946/rg33/245-246

Wie »Juris« in Kassel entstand
type: item
creator: Eberhard Eichenhofer
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Autor/in https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-09-11
publication date: 2025-09-11
starting page: 247
ending page: 249
doi: 10.12946/rg33/247-249

Historia Magistra Vitae
type: item
creator: Caspar Ehlers
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Autor/in https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-09-11
publication date: 2025-09-11
starting page: 249
ending page: 250
doi: 10.12946/rg33/249-250

Klimakrisen vor der Klimakrise
type: item
creator: Jan-Henrik Meyer
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Autor/in https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-09-11
publication date: 2025-09-11
starting page: 251
ending page: 253
doi: 10.12946/rg33/251-253

Kritiklos
type: item
description: Rechtsgeschichte – Legal History ist seit über 20 Jahren die Zeitschrift des Max-Planck-Instituts für Rechtsgeschichte und Rechtstheorie. In allen Rubriken der Zeitschrift waren und sind stets einige unserer Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftler mit ihren Forschungsergebnissen vertreten. Auch im Rezensionsteil, Kritik, wirken sie regelmäßig als Rezensentinnen und Rezensenten mit. Allerdings werden hier keine eigenen rechtshistorisch relevanten Neuerscheinungen besprochen, sondern ausschließlich solche von außerhalb des Instituts, und dabei soll es bleiben. Um auch den vielfältigen Publikationen unseres Hauses einen Platz in Rg einzuräumen, möchten wir in dieser Rubrik jeweils zehn Titel hervorheben, die in jüngster Zeit von Angehörigen des Instituts publiziert worden sind – und sie kritiklos vorstellen. Neuerscheinungen in den Publikationsreihen des Instituts sind unter https://www.lhlt.mpg.de/neuerscheinungen zu finden, die Publikationen der institutsangehörigen Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftler auf den individuellen Profilseiten unter https://www.lhlt.mpg.de/wissenschaftler-innen. Marietta Auer, Paul B. Miller, Henry E. Smith, James Toomey (eds.), Reinach and the Foundations of Private Law Marietta Auer, Ralf Seinecke (Hg.), Eugen Ehrlich. Kontexte und Rezeptionen Manuela Bragagnolo (ed.), The Production of Knowledge of Normativity in the Age of the Printing Press: Martín de Azpilcueta’s Manual de Confessores from a Global Perspective Donal K. Coffey, Stefan Vogenauer (eds.), Legal Transfer and Legal Geography in the British Empire Thomas Duve, Tamar Herzog (eds.), The Cambridge History of Latin American Law in Global Perspective Anna Clara Lehmann Martins, The Fabric of the Ordinary. The Council of Trent and the Governance of the Catholic Church in the Empire of Brazil (1840–1889) Heinz Mohnhaupt, Privilegien als Sonderrechte in europäischen Rechtsordnungen vom Mittelalter bis heute Julie Rocheton, The Genesis of Nineteenth-Century Civil Codes in the Un…
creator: Redaktion
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Autor/in https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-09-11
publication date: 2025-09-11
starting page: 256
ending page: 259
doi: 10.12946/rg33/256-259

Was ist Recht? Eine Marginalie
type: item
description: The short essay playfully addresses the old philosophical question »what is law?« and explores possible answers and their meaning for historical and legal-historical research. To this end, different types of law, diﬀerent abstract perspectives of conceptual research as well as family resemblances between the usages of the word »law« are introduced. The article argues that there must not be any ﬁnal answer to the question »what is law?«, but instead the question itself is part of an ongoing and centuries-old struggle for law. A struggle that (legal-)historical research always should be aware of, because it till now determines our deﬁnitions of what law is and what it is not.
creator: Ralf Seinecke
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Autor/in https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-09-11
publication date: 2025-09-11
starting page: 264
ending page: 269
doi: 10.12946/rg33/264-269

The Politics of Time in Legal History: A Reﬂection on the Power of Graphic Narratives
type: item
description: This article reﬂects on the politics of time in legal history through the lens of Camino y Ruptura, a graphic history I authored based on my doctoral research on Indigenous legal practices in early 20th-century Cauca, Colombia. By tracing the legal and political strategies of Indigenous communities – particularly their use of petitions, archives, and legal norms – I examine how alternative, non-linear conceptions of time inform Indigenous engagements with law, history, and political resistance. Drawing on both archival sources and contemporary Indigenous epistemologies, I argue that time operates not merely as a backdrop but as a central political category in struggles for land, justice, and recognition. Through the use of graphic narrative, Camino y Ruptura seeks to visualize the coexistence of past, present, and future as a spiral, challenging dominant legal-historical methodologies rooted in Western linear temporality. The article reﬂects on the possibilities and tensions of combining historical scholarship and visual storytelling to construct a more inclusive and plural legal history.
creator: Karla L. Escobar H.
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Autor/in https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-09-11
publication date: 2025-09-11
starting page: 271
ending page: 281
doi: 10.12946/rg33/271-281

Multilingualität und Recht in der Spätantike
type: item
description: The present article examines the importance of multilingualism for Roman law via various case studies: The utilisation of Coptic and Syriac in legal documentation, the impact of the Syro-Roman lawbook extending beyond the conﬁnes of the Roman Empire up to the era of Islamicate rule, and the transimperial collaboration in the production of legal knowledge, as exempliﬁed by the Mishna and canonical law, are of particular interest. The Mishnaic corpus represents the ﬁrst normative regime to be developed within the conﬁnes of the Roman Empire, yet one which gained validity beyond its geographical boundaries. Canon law was established by imperial church councils, yet it was also accepted by churches outside the Roman Empire (for example, the Church of the East), which continued the process of establishing canon law without abandoning tradition. It is evident that the multilingual nature of Roman law facilitated the dissemination of legal knowledge beyond the conﬁnes of Rome, thereby oﬀering a unique Eurasian perspective on the history of law.
creator: Hartmut Leppin
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Autor/in https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-09-11
publication date: 2025-09-11
starting page: 18
ending page: 35
doi: 10.12946/rg33/018-035

Zwischen Pluralismus und Vereinheitlichung – Quellenperspektiven für die Geschichte des Arbeitsrechts
type: item
description: This article outlines fundamental characteristics of labour law sources regarding their mediality in the premodern and modern era. It argues that labour law sources were initially characterised by informal normativity, which inﬂuenced the forms of communication used by labour regulations. This was evident at various levels in the intertwining of law and work ethics, which viewed people as status-dependent service providers. The replacement by abstract categories of employees who are, in principle, in need of protection is seen as a central step towards modern labour law, which was accompanied by a change in language that in turn shaped the character of the sources and their institutional surrounding.
creator: Thorsten Keiser
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Autor/in https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-09-11
publication date: 2025-09-11
starting page: 36
ending page: 58
doi: 10.12946/rg33/036-058

Zwischen Recht und Literatur: Die Kriminalfallsammlung des Neuen Pitaval (1842–1890) als Gegenstand digitaler Korpusanalysen
type: item
description: Legal and literary studies have traditionally relied on text interpretation within a hermeneutic framework. However, the rise of Digital Humanities has introduced computational methods for analyzing large text corpora, challenging classical approaches. To validate these new methods, they must be compared with the results of traditional research. In this study, we used corpus analyses of all 570 texts in the criminal case study collection Der Neue Pitaval (1842–1890) to explore core hypotheses previously proposed based on only three percent of the case studies. Using stylometric clustering, topic modeling, and word embeddings, we were able to both conﬁrm and reﬁne existing knowledge about the key role of Der Neue Pitaval in 19th-century German public debates on criminal law reform, criminal trials, and evidentiary procedures. Our stylometric analysis provides evidence that Pitaval criminal case studies represent a distinct textual form. They diﬀer from contemporary literary genres and representations of criminality in popular journals through their complexity and vocabulary richness. A quantitative semantic analysis of the corpus highlights the collection’s focus on the sequence of events in criminal acts, with murder being the most frequently discussed crime. While the collection maintains an even gender distribution, narratives of poisoning strongly adhere to binary gender stereotypes.
creator: Thomas Weitin
creator: Katharina Herget
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Autor/in https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-09-11
publication date: 2025-09-11
starting page: 60
ending page: 82
doi: 10.12946/rg33/060-085

Historische Gerechtigkeit auf dem Rechtsweg? Walter Schwarz und die Zeitschrift Rechtsprechung zum Wiedergutmachungsrecht (1949–1981)
type: item
description: he article analyses the importance of the German legal journal Rechtsprechung zum Wiedergutmachungsrecht (RzW), literally translated as ›Jurisdiction on the right to reparations‹, which was published in the Federal Republic between 1949 and 1981. Sponsored initially by the state and later also ﬁnancially supported by the United Restitution Organisation (URO), a Jewish legal aid organisation, it was the only legal journal specialised in matters of reparation and redress. As such, it had a vital role in communicating the developments in this ﬁeld to jurists, bureaucrats and politicians. When the German Jewish lawyer Walter Schwarz took over the editorship in 1957, the journal also became a forum for legal and judicial criticism. Taking clues from the sociologist Niklas Luhmann’s important study Legitimation durch Verfahren (1969), the article traces the editorial development of the RzW and demonstrates the impact and the limits of what can be called justice-compliant judicial criticism, a criticism that is brought forward in a way that it can be addressed by the legal system without raising more fundamental moral and legal questions. In the three decades of its existence, the RzW contributed to the establishment of restitution law in the Federal Republic of Germany, but its jurisprudential interventions often went unnoticed. When the journal ceased publication at the end of 1981, Schwarz and his colleagues were proud of the achievements of the West German Wiedergutmachung, but they also recognised that the administration of justice in this ﬁeld had remained a marginal area of the law that had received little attention let alone recognition from the public.
creator: Daniel Siemens
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Autor/in https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-09-11
publication date: 2025-09-11
starting page: 87
ending page: 96
doi: 10.12946/rg33/087-096