Law & Humanities Blog

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The History of European Legal Culture Posted: 16 Oct 2013 08:26 AM PDT Helge Dedek, Mc Gill University Faculty of Law, Institute of Comparative Law, is publishing When Law Became Cultivated: 'European Legal Culture' between Kultur and Civilization in Towards a European Legal Culture (G. Helleringer & K. Purnhagen eds.; C. H. Beck/Hart: Munich-Oxford, 2014) (forthcoming). Here is the abstract. In this contribution, I invite the reader to approach the concept of 'European legal culture' from a historical perspective. Such an approach is helpful in two ways: first, it helps to attune one's ear to the shades of meaning of 'culture' and to enhance awareness of the fact that 'legal culture' may have a different ring in different legal traditions. Second, as we shall see, it is the discourse on 'legal culture' itself, and especially the discourse on 'European legal culture', that seeks historical legitimacy by cultivating foundational narratives, invoking, in particular, the writings of the German Historical School and its most well-known proponent, Friedrich Carl von Savigny. I will present 'snapshots' of some of the foundational moments in the career of the concept of 'legal culture', and then, after a short comparison with contemporary English usage, set out to inquire which role 'legal culture' may be said to play in Savigny's famous manifesto, Vom Beruf unserer Zeit für Gesetzgebung und Rechtswissenschaft (Of the Vocation of our Age for Legislation and Legal Science, written in 1814).