The late Middle Ages saw the emergence of professional jurists as a new functionary elite. The study approaches this phenomenon by focusing on a singular individual: Dietrich von Bocksdorf, Professor of Canon Law in Leipzig, learned counselor to the elector of Saxony, bishop of Naumburg. The book thereby breaks new ground. It offers not only a biography, but explores large and previously unused and largely unknown collections of more than 500 papers from the legal practice, written by the Leipzig Ordinarius. Based on this unique material the book examines for the first time spheres of influence, circles of clients and occupational fields of an individual late medieval german jurist. Legal opinions (“consilia”) and pleadings, but as well working tools for the emerging learned practice of “Common Saxon Law” made by Dietrich von Bocksdorf, provide deep insights into the beginnings of the epochal change from the traditional-archaic jurisdiction of the Middle Ages to the scholarly and written practice of law in the early modern world.
