Einheit und Vielfalt im Recht / Legal Unity and Pluralism – serie

In der Frühen Neuzeit war die Frage, auf welche Weise die Ehe rechtswirksam geschlossen wurde, äußerst umstritten. Im Unterschied zur heutigen Zivilehe gab es keinen singulären Rechtsakt, der darüber entschied, ab welchem Zeitpunkt eine Ehe gültig war. Vielmehr konnten viele unterschiedliche, auch widersprüchliche und uneindeutige Normen bei der Eheschließung wirksam werden: geschriebene ebenso wie ungeschriebene, geistliche ebenso wie weltliche, landesherrliche ebenso wie städtische. Je nach normativer Grundlage entschied entweder das Gelöbnis der Brautleute, der Beischlaf, der Konsens der Eltern, der Tausch von Geschenken, das gemeinsame Mahl oder die kirchliche Trauung über die Rechtmäßigkeit der Ehe. Am Beispiel der frühneuzeitlichen Grafschaft Lippe untersucht Iris Fleßenkämper, wie die Zeitgenossen mit der Vielfalt an Regelungsmöglichkeiten in einem Lebensbereich umgingen, der grundlegend für die Aufrechterhaltung der familiären und sozialen Ordnung war.

Scholarship on ancient Greek law has diversified in recent years. Conceptual challenges from the division between History of Law and Ancient History have subsided. Also, as the conversation unfolds, new sources hailing from various corners of the Greek world enrich the picture; they complement the prominence previous research has assigned to Athens and Crete as unique places of study. The current volume fully embraces these developments. Fleshing out the intersection between the unity of Greek law on the one hand and its manifestation in countless cities on the other, each one with striking idiosyncrasy in legal administration and practice, it explores new perspectives on the interplay between local law and legal coherence in ancient Greece from Archaic to Hellenistic times.

When the Portuguese arrived at the mouth of the Zaire River in 1483, two vibrant normative regimes came into contact. The European traders, missionaries, and soldiers who followed the first explorers brought a jurisdictional system of government that accepted local uses and customs as biding and a theological understanding of natural law with universalist claims. They encountered complex African societies based on various normative systems, emphasizing arbitration and mediation between corporate groups and protection against evils attributed to preternatural forms of personal agency – what the Portuguese framed as feitiçaria or sorcery. João Figueiredo focuses on the intense cross-cultural translation of normative knowledge in West Central Africa following this initial encounter. He argues it was afforded by an evolving, shared understanding of sorcery and constant renegotiation of the limits and meanings of jurisdiction, the law, and the institutions of slavery.

How did pre-modern merchants provide for predictability in situations of legal pluralism? What kind of practices did merchants use to make other parties act according to their expectations? In spheres of legal pluralism, different normative framings always overlapped and had to be negotiated in order to manage expectations. How did the actors in premodern trade decide on the framing they would act upon? The contributors discuss various means to cope with legal pluralism in place in Northern Europe, from trust and diplomacy to violence and normative orders. Taken together, the contributions show that merchants and their communities did not strive for a unification and harmonization of laws according to modern statehood, but for an enhancement of their particular group’s position in a pluralist normative field.