Course info

CREDITS 2 (LV) 3 (ECTS) - 32 Contact Hours

This course offers students an introduction to European legal history. It illustrates how the beginnings of the civil law tradition in Europe can be traced back to the rediscovery of Roman Name Academic degree Academic position Tjaco Theo van den Hout LLM (Leiden) Visiting lecturer Name Academic degree Academic position Tjaco Theo van den Hout LLM (Leiden) Visiting lecturer law and the emergence of classical canon law around 1100 AD. It then explores how in the subsequent centuries, up to and including the eighteenth, a sophisticated legal science of a distinct European dimension developed. Since that time different European states have constructed their own legal systems but, with the exception of England and Ireland, they are all heirs to this tradition of the jus commune. The course covers Roman law in antiquity, the revival of Justinian’s law, Roman law & the nation state and Roman law & codification. It takes us from before AD 565, to a sequence of historical periods, viz. circa 500 -1000, 1000 – 1453, 1453 – 1648, 1648 – 1914, and 1914 - present. Teaching is based on the modern (American law school) version of the “Socratic method” — blurring the distinction between lectures and seminars. As a consequence, it is highly interactive with ample opportunity for classroom discussion and stimulating critical thinking