Dominus Mundi

This monograph makes a seminal contribution to existing literature on the importance of Roman law in the development of political thought in Europe. In particular it examines the expression 'dominus mundi', following it through the texts of the medieval jurists – the Glossators and Post-Glossators – up to the political thought of Hobbes. Understanding the concept of dominus mundi sheds light on how medieval jurists understood ownership of individual things; it is more complex than it might seem; and this book investigates these complexities. The book also offers important new insights into Thomas Hobbes, especially with regard to the end of dominus mundi and the replacement by Leviathan. Finally, the book has important relevance for contemporary political theory. With fading of political diversity Monateri argues “that the actual setting of globalisation represents the reappearance of the Ghost of the Dominus Mundi, a political refoulé – repressed – a reappearance of its sublime nature, and a struggle to restore its universal legitimacy, and take its place.” In making this argument, the book adds an important original vision to current debates in legal and political philosophy.

This book features original essays by leading academics and emerging researchers written in honour of a legal comparatist who, over the course of four decades, has played a major role in comparative law’s development: Pier Giuseppe Monateri. Rather than being just a celebrative work without analytical appeal, this book makes a significant contribution to the comparative legal literature by exploring key comparative law themes and recent developments in the field. Reflecting Monateri’s vast expertise, innovative thinking, and truly global network, the volume is divided into five thematic areas of both scholarly and practical significance: Comparative Law and Its Methods; Comparative Private Law; Law and Literature; The Politics and Ontology of Law; Comparative Law & Economics. Discussing novel case-studies as well as exploring Monateri’s importance to the comparative enterprise through various trajectories of inquiry – for example, normative, doctrinal, empirical, critical – this book takes a fundamental and much-needed step towards the establishment of comparative law as a fully-fledged academic discipline and professional practice. Addressing the current status and future direction of comparative law, this book will appeal to legal comparativists, as well as students and scholars with broader interests in the nature of legal cultures.

Empire is an evocative, yet little examined, word. It can mean the domination of vast territories, a Christian world order, a corrupt form of government, or a humanitarian endeavour. Historians relegate the concept of empire to the pre-modern world, identifying the state as the characteristic political form of the modern world. This book examines the range of meanings attributed to the concept of empire in the medieval and early modern world, demonstrating how the concepts of empire and state developed in parallel, not sequentially.

The Academy is a prestigious international institution for the study and teaching of Public and Private International Law and related subjects. The work of the Hague Academy receives the support and recognition of the UN. Its purpose is to encourage a thorough and impartial examination of the problems arising from international relations in the field of law. The courses deal with the theoretical and practical aspects of the subject, including legislation and case law. All courses at the Academy are, in principle, published in the language in which they were delivered in the "Collected Courses of the Hague Academy of International Law .

History casts a spell on our minds more powerful than science or religion. It does not root us in the past at all. It rather flatters us with the belief in our ability to recreate the world in our image. It is a form of self-assertion that brooks no opposition or dissent and shelters us from the experience of time. So argues Constantin Fasolt in The Limits of History, an ambitious and pathbreaking study that conquers history's power by carrying the fight into the center of its domain. Fasolt considers the work of Hermann Conring (1606-81) and Bartolus of Sassoferrato (1313/14-57), two antipodes in early modern battles over the principles of European thought and action that ended with the triumph of historical consciousness. Proceeding according to the rules of normal historical analysis—gathering evidence, putting it in context, and analyzing its meaning—Fasolt uncovers limits that no kind of history can cross. He concludes that history is a ritual designed to maintain the modern faith in the autonomy of states and individuals. God wants it, the old crusaders would have said. The truth, Fasolt insists, only begins where that illusion ends. With its probing look at the ideological underpinnings of historical practice, The Limits of History demonstrates that history presupposes highly political assumptions about free will, responsibility, and the relationship between the past and the present. A work of both intellectual history and historiography, it will prove invaluable to students of historical method, philosophy, political theory, and early modern European culture.

This is Volume V of selected works of Frances A. Yates. Astraea looks at the Imperial theme in the sixteenth century and includes Charles V and the idea of Empire to the Tudor Imperial Reform and the French Monarchy.