Legal History from a European Perspective

On the differences between the two streams of the German Historical School: the Pandectists and the Germanists. The example of possession: the Roman concept and Albrecht's German alternative to it, the Gewere.

The other stream of the Historical School: the Germanists and their focus on ancient German law. The parallel between the search for original legal ideas and the one for German literature: the task of the brothers Grimm. The importance of community in German tradition.

A presentation of the nineteenth-century German model: the impossibility to adopt a generally shared codification, Savigny’s claim for the supremacy of the “Volksgeist”, the adoption of Roman institutes of private law by the Germans and the new stream of “Pandectists”.

The situation in the United States of America analysed by Alexis de Tocqueville, the influence of France model in Europe and the new-born “Historical School” in Germany.

This podcast analyses how France has been a model for the whole Europe. Spain, Portugal, Italy, later Germany, Austria, Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland: all adopted the model of a similar codification.