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This special issue of one of the leading German historical journals features case studies and a theoretical model to conceptualize multinormativity in the early modern period. The overarching concept that holds the contributions together is that of "normative competition" (Normenkonkurrenz), developed by Hillard von Thiessen. It offers a dynamic, interactive, and actor-centered approach to the co-existence of potentially conflicting normative orders in the early modern period. Von Thiessen draws attention to the manifold ways in which subjects consciously or unconsciously contribute to the shape and operation of norms. He offers an alternative to existing models that try to describe and explain normative change in the early modern period, such as Gerhard Oestreich’s model of "social discipline" (Sozialdisziplinierung) and Wolfgang Reinhard and Heinz Schilling’s model of"confessionalization" (Konfessionalisierung). In von Thiessen’s view, these models are inadequate. They are implicitly indebted to Max Weber’s paradigm of the gradual rationalization of Western civilization, and they assume a static opposition between norm-creating authorities and norm-receiving subjects. The models of "social discipline" and "confessionalization" start from the belief that citizens’ behavior gradually and homogeneously adapted to the norms laid down by the authorities. Recent historical scholarship has demonstrated that the top-down imposition of norms by state authorities and religious institutions often failed. A gap existed between the norms on the books and the norms in action, to the extent that daily life deviated from norms imposed by central authorities like the state or religious institutions in the first place. Von Thiessen, however, wants to avoid narratives of failure or success. Rather than starting from an antagonistic vision that pits institutional norm-producers against passive norm-receiving subjects, von Thiessen emphasizes the synergistic role played by all actors in the production and implementation of norms. ...
This paper is a prolegomenon to further study of the intensified relationship between law and moral theology in early modern times. In a period characterized by a growing anxiety for the salvation of the soul (»Confessional Catholicism«), a vast literature for confessors, which became increasingly juridical in nature, saw the light between roughly 1550 and 1650. By focussing on some of the most important Jesuit canonists and moral theologians, this article first seeks to explain why jurisprudence became regarded as an indispensable tool to solve moral problems. While Romano-canon law showed its merits as an instrument of precision to come to grips with concrete qualms of conscience, with the passing of time it also became studied for its own sake. The second part of this paper, therefore, illustrates how the legal tradition, particularly with regard to the law of obligations, was reshaped in the treatises of the moral theologians.
Legal pluralism calls into question the monopoly of the modern state when it comes to the production and the enforcement of norms. It rests on the assumption that juridical normativity and state organization can be dissociated. From an early modern historian’s perspective, such an assumption makes perfect sense, the plural nature of the legal order being the natural state of affairs in imperial spaces across the globe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This article will provide a case study of the collaborative nature of the interaction between spiritual and temporal legal orders in Spain and its overseas territories as conceived by Tomás de Mercado (ca. 1520–1575), a major theologian from the School of Salamanca. His treatise on trade and contracts (1571) contained an extended discussion of the government’s attempt to regulate the grain market by imposing a maximum price. It will be argued that Mercado’s view on the bindingness of economic regulations in conscience allowed for the internalization of the regulatory power of the nascent state. He called upon confessors to be strict enforcers of state law, considering them as fathers of the republic as much as fathers of faith. This is illustrative of the "collaborative form of legal pluralism" typical of the osmotic relationship between Church and State in the early modern Spanish empire. It contributed to the moral justification of state jurisdictions, while at the same time, guaranteeing a privileged role for theologians and religious leaders in running the affairs of the state.
"Every time a society finds itself in crisis it instinctively turns its eyes towards its origins and looks there for a sign." With this citation from Octavio Paz, the 1990 Nobel Prize winner in literature, Berman concluded his Law and Revolution: The Formation of the Western Legal Tradition in 1983. There is a sense in which, thirty years later, this quote remains utterly appropriate, certainly at the beginning of a re-assessment of Berman’s thoughts on the particular topic of the religious origins of modern commercial and financial institutions. Five years on from the start of the financial crisis, triggered by the collapse of Lehman Brothers on 15 September 2008, it is worthwhile recalling, perhaps, that the sign perceived by Berman in the history of mercantile law was a sign that pointed towards the fundamental interconnectedness of belief systems and business. Berman was profoundly convinced of the vital, historical link between religion, trust, and economic prosperity. ...
Beim Stichwort Wucher reißt manchem Rechtspraktiker die Geduld. Dabei haben interdisziplinäre Forschungen zu diesem Thema im Zuge der Finanzkrise und dank der erfolgreichen Entwicklung des islamischen Bankwesens in den letzten Jahren einen beachtlichen Aufschwung genommen. Die Frage, was vom Wucher übrigbleibt, stand im Februar 2011 im Mittelpunkt eines Workshops des Exzellenzclusters "Religion und Politik in den Kulturen der Vormoderne und der Moderne" an der Westfälischen Wilhelms-Universität Münster, dessen Ergebnisse nunmehr in einem von Matthias Casper, Norbert Oberauer und Fabian Wittreck veröffentlichten Sammelband vorliegen. Auch wenn es den Herausgebern gelungen ist, die Debatte um einige neue Perspektiven zu erweitern, ist die Themenauswahl traditionsgemäß hauptsächlich auf die Zins- und Wucherkontroverse in den christlichen bzw. muslimischen Rechtstraditionen beschränkt. Der Zusammenbruch des christlichen Zinsverbots vor mindestens fünf Jahrhunderten ist allen bekannt. Aufgrund des Beitrags des Ökonomen Volker Nienhaus über die Entwicklung Sharia-konformer Finanztechniken erscheint jedoch am Ende die Frage legitim, ob nicht auch das Islamische riba-Verbot allmählich durch die Logik des Geldes überwuchert wird. ...
Zu der herkömmlichen Vorstellung des Verhältnisses von Kirche und Staat im frühneuzeitlichen Frankreich gehört, dass Fürsten wie Ludwig XIV. die externe Bevormundung der französischen Kirche durch den Bischof von Rom zugunsten der Formierung einer nationalen Sonderkirche endgültig eingedämmt haben. Dementsprechend sind die 1682 unter Leitung von Jacques Bénigne Bossuet verfassten gallikanischen Artikel klassischer Bestandteil des französischen Selbstverständnisses in Sachen Politik und Religion geworden. Sie gelten als das natürliche Ergebnis einer logischen Entwicklung hin zur Verstetigung der Machtansprüche der lokalen weltlichen und geistlichen Machthaber dem Papst gegenüber, die spätestens mit der 1438 durch Karl VII. verabschiedeten Pragmatischen Sanktion von Bourges ihren ersten großen Erfolg feierte. Dass diese Errungenschaft nicht unumkämpft war, belegt nun allerdings die Dissertation von Cyrille Dounot über den äußerst papsttreuen Juristen Antoine Dadine d’Auteserre (1602–1682). Eine reichlich dokumentierte Biographie dieses Zivilrechtlehrers der Universität Toulouse, die teilweise auf bisher unerforschte Archivmaterialien zurückgeht, bietet der Autor im ersten Teil seiner Arbeit an. ...
Improving nomenclatural consistency: a decade of experience in the World Register of Marine Species
(2017)
The World Register of Marine species (WoRMS) has been established for a decade. The early history of the database involved compilation of existing global and regional species registers. This aggregation, combined with changes to data types and the changing needs of WoRMS users, has resulted in an evolution of data-entry consistency over time. With the task of aggregating the accepted species names for all marine species approaching completion, our focus has shifted to improving the consistency and quality of data held while keeping pace with the addition of > 2000 new marine species described annually. This paper defines priorities and longer-term aims that promote standardisation within and interoperability among biodiversity databases, provides editors with further information on how to input nomenclatural data in a standardised way and clarifies for users of WoRMS how and why names are represented as they are. We 1) explain the categories of names included; 2) list standard reasons used to explain why a name is considered ‘unaccepted’ or ‘uncertain’; 3) present and explain the more difficult situations encountered; 4) describe categories of sources and notes linked to a taxon; and 5) recommend how type material, type locality and environmental information should be entered.