A Companion to Western Legal Tradition

Aniceto Masferrer, Ph.D. (2000), is Professor of Legal History at the University of Valencia. He has published around 25 monographs and edited volumes in Spanish and English, including The Making of Dignity and Human Rights in the Western Tradition. A Retrospective Analysis (Springer, 2023). He is also the editor of GLOSSAE. European Journal of Legal History. C.H. (Remco) van Rhee, Ph.D. (1997), is Professor of European Legal History at Maastricht University. He has published widely on European legal history, the history of courts and adjudication, and modern civil procedure. He is an editor of Tijdschrift voor Rechtsgeschiedenis and contributed as chair of the working group on Obligations of the Judge and the Parties to the Model European Rules of Civil Procedure (UNIDROIT/European Law Institute, 2021). Seán P. Donlan, Ph.D. (2002), is Professor of Law at Thompson Rivers University. He has published on comparative legal history, comparative law, and Irish history. In addition to editing the journal Comparative Legal History, his edited publications include Comparative Law: Mixes, Movements, and Metaphors (Routledge, 2020) and Legal Traditions in Louisiana and the Floridas, 1763-1848 (The Law Book Exchange, 2019). Cornelis Heesters, MA, LLM, is an independent researcher, writer, editor, and translator living in Baltimore.

Notes on Contributors


Western Legal Traditions: An Introduction

  Aniceto Masferrer, C.H. van Rhee, Seán P. Donlan and Cornelis Heesters



1 Antiquity (753 bc–565 ad)

  Jan Hallebeek



2 Early Middle Ages (500–1100)

  Stephan Dusil, Bernd Kannowski and Gerald Schwedler



3 High and Late Middle Ages (1100–1500)

  Dirk Heirbaut and Heikki Pihlajamäki



4 From Ius Commune Multi-normativity to a Sovereign Legislator (1500–1650)

  Adolfo Giuliani



5 1650–1775

  Jean-Louis Halpérin



6 Revolutionary Period and Nineteenth Century (1776–1900)

  Aniceto Masferrer and C.H. van Rhee



7 Contemporary Period (1900–Present)

  Olivier Moréteau, Agustín Parise and Jacques Vanderlinden†



Index