The multiple documents processed contain a number of documents, sources of law in translation. These vary greatly in the length of their extracts. If they are long, we want you to have an idea of the overall structure; If they are short, you should focus on the details. The program contains some notes on what is important. The institutional history of the 12th and 13th centuries. The Reformation and the “Twelfth-Century Renaissance” This seminar examines the history of American federalism, both as a constitutional value and as a product of intellectual history, from its modern European precursors to the American Civil War. Topics include the legal and political organization of the colonies and the British Empire; early U.S. federal experiments; the American Revolution and the Articles of Confederation; drafting and ratification of the Constitution; the cancellation crisis; Secession; and civil war. Readings come from primary historical sources, secondary sources in history and law, political theory and cases. Grades are based on a series of short answers and a classroom presentation. Students who wish to take the seminar for three credits must write an additional short research paper of 10 to 15 pages in addition to the rest of the course. Participation can be taken into account in the final ranking.
The Reformation and the “Renaissance of the twelfth century”. The institutional history of the 12th and 13th centuries: England and France. Why Bologna? Task: No special, a chance to catch up. The question of why Bologna is a question we could ask at the beginning or end of this unit. Here we could list the possible answers This seminar examines the legal and intellectual history of debates on American constitutional law and American politics between the revolution and the Civil War of 1800 to 1860. Topics include federal-state relations, commercial power, internal improvements, the market revolution, federal regulation of slavery in the territories, and the role of federal courts. The grade is based on a 20-25 page thesis, a short class presentation, and class participation. Originalism is an important school of constitutional interpretation and an important field of study. Legal and public debates regularly contain originalist arguments or criticisms of originalism. To use these arguments, lawyers and citizens must weigh the merits of a variety of originalist theories.
Prerequisite: a course in constitutional law. This graduate seminar explores what it means to research and write legal history – interpreted broadly and involving the overlapping fields of constitutional history, the history of social law, and legal and social research. After canonical readings chosen from geographical and chronological areas, we turn to the latest works of current scholars on topics such as social histories of law, legal cultures and legal institutions, among others; religion and secular authority; race, gender, family and legality; international law, martial law and human rights; and comparative/transnational approaches to justice and the rule of law. This seminar is aimed at graduate students who study issues of law and society or the history of legal ideas and institutions, and seeks various methods and interpretive approaches to legal history, including, but not limited to, the use of court records. One of the highlights of the seminar will be classroom visits to Brown by eminent historians specializing in one or more of the above topics and/or methods at different times and regions of the world. In the past, this course featured two 55-minute formal lectures and a separate section for FAS law students and graduates each week (and two separate classes for students). This is not possible this year due to Covid calendar issues, so everything has to be integrated into two-and-a-half-hour classes every week. I intend to pre-record as many 55-minute lectures as possible so that we can devote the courses to discussing them and discussing the documents we have covered in the sections. In the program, all subjects are assigned to one of the classes. We will resume the subjects in the order indicated in the syllabus, but some subjects can be transferred to the next class and the subjects in that class shortened accordingly.
References to Bellomo, van Caenegem and RFG are included in the program. As an alternative to Bellomo and van Caenegem, we have also included readings from three other books in the program. One of them is a classic: Roman Law in Medieval Europe by Paul Vinogradoff. Two others are relatively recent and controversial, Alan Watson`s The Making of the Civil Law and Harold Berman`s Law and Revolution. PDF copies of excerpts from Bellomo, van Caenegem, Vinogradoff, Watson and Berman can be found under Presentations on the website. We will try to add excerpts from Padoa-Schioppa during the semester. Overall, we think books other than RFG cover the topics they cover better than RFG or even Padoa-Schioppa. However, some people really like to have a textbook, and although none of the books now extracted are textbooks, Bellomo and van Caenegem come close. You may want to read some of the excerpts for the class, and others when reviewing the course for the exam. The key to taking this course is to prepare for each course, especially with the materials, and to participate in the courses and sections. We spend a lot of time in class discussing documents. When we taught this course before, we found that students who read the materials and attended classes did well, even though they did not do the relatively modest amount of secondary reading that we recommend.
The course requires short work. There should be no more than five double-spaced typed pages without notes. It can analyze one or more of the documents in the documents (or you can choose a document yourself). The basic idea is to choose a document, analyze it and draw a conclusion about what it tells us about a topic in continental legal history. You can do the work at any time during the semester. You should have chosen a topic for Friday, March 25 at the latest. You must submit your first draft by Thursday, April 21. We will comment on it and send it back to you. The final draft must be submitted before the start of the review period (Friday, May.