Dave De ruysscher, Ph.D. (2009), is Associate Professor at Tilburg University and at Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Being legal historian and lawyer, he specializes in the history of commercial and private law of the early modern period and the nineteenth century. Albrecht Cordes is Professor of Medieval and Early Modern Legal History and Civil Law at the Goethe University Frankfurt/Main. His research is especially focused on the history of commercial law, Hanseatic legal history and the history of conflict resolution.Serge Dauchy is Research Director at the CNRS (Lille-France) and Professor of Legal History at the University Saint-Louis of Brussels. His main research topics are the history of civil procedure, comparative history of central courts and the history of Québec.Heikki Pihlajamäki is Professor of Comparative Legal History at the University of Helsinki. He has published extensively on the legal history of Scandinavia, Europe and America, including Conquest and the Law in Swedish Livonia (ca. 1630 – 1710): A Case of Legal Pluralism in Early Modern Europe (Brill, 2017).

''Overall, this collection shows the value of discussing concepts explicitly. It creates some much-needed clarity, and this is perhaps the best way of establishing differences and similarities for comparative legal and historical research.The volume’s contributions show the way that legal study, through its demand for precision in language and its definition and meaning, can inform business and economic history;it is a fruitful example of how legal history can be combined with business and economic history''. Victoria Barnes, in Legal History , 27 (2019), pp.322-324.

• AcknowledgmentsList of Figures and TablesIntroductionDave De ruysscher, Albrecht Cordes, Serge Dauchy and Heikki Pihlajamäki1 What is a Small Firm? Some Indications from the Business Organization of Late Medieval German MerchantsUlla Kypta2 Making Size Matter Less: Italian Firms and Merchant Guilds in Late Medieval BrugesBart Lambert3 Late Scholasticism and Commercial Partnership: Persons and Capitals in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth CenturiesLuisa Brunori4 Legal Structure of Early Enterprises—from Commenda-like Arrangements to Chartered Joint-Stock Companies (Early Modern Period)Anja Amend-Traut5 Delving for Diversity in Early Modern Company Law: Mining Companies in Seventeenth-Century LiègeBram Van Hofstraeten6 Incorporation and Limited Liability in Seventeenth-Century England: The Case of the East India CompanyStefania Gialdroni7 From Commercial Guilds to Commercial Law: Spanish Company Regulations (1737–1848)Carlos Petit8 Partnerships as Flexible and Open-Purpose Entities: Legal and Commercial Practice in Nineteenth-Century Antwerp (c. 1830–c. 1850)Dave De ruysscher9 Form, Size, “Governance”: Remarks on Italian Late Nineteenth-Century CompaniesAnnamaria MontiIndex