Welcome to our Society!

Under the direction of the Romanist Wolfgang Kaiser and the Germanist Frank L. Schäfer, numerous people research the history of law at the Albertina. The scope of legal history research in Freiburg spans a period of more than 2000 years and at the same time the entire Western legal culture from Beryt to Bologna and from Scandinavia to Africa.

Legal historical research in Freiburg has a long tradition. Otto Lenel's reconstructions of the Edictum perpetuum and the classical legal writings have become indispensable tools of Roman studies all over the world and have remained so to this day. The Romanists Fridolin Eisele and Joseph Partsch were among the pioneers of their profession, as were the Germanists Karl von Amira and Ulrich Stutz. Franz Beyerle's book on the development of legal proceedings in the early Middle Ages, published in 1915, is still not outdated. Professors from Freiburg have also produced important textbooks that have introduced generations of law students to the history of law: Claudius Freiherr von Schwerin's "Foundations of German Legal History", which Hans Thieme continued, Franz Wieacker's "History of Private Law in Modern Times" and finally Karl Kroeschell's three-volume "German Legal History", have found numerous readers - among students as well as among scholars, among legal historians from Germany and abroad as well as among historians and lawyers.

The Freiburger Society for Legal History was founded in November 2001 by former doctoral students and assistants of the Institute for Legal History and Comparative Legal History who today work predominantly as lawyers in legal practice. Decisive motives for the foundation of the association were the common conviction of the extraordinary value of legal history for legal education and the realization that legal history must be promoted emphatically in a constantly changing scientific environment.

The Society has set itself the goal of presenting the results of historical research to a wider public beyond the boundaries of science. At the same time, we would like to learn from the experiences of practicing lawyers in order to discuss fundamental questions of jurisprudence in a dialogue between basic research and applied jurisprudence and thus share with you the joy of scientific discussion.

Board

Chairman: Prof. Dr. Frank L. Schäfer
Deputy Chairman: Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Kaiser
Treasurer: Dr. Andreas Schilling
Further board members: Justice at the German Federal Court of Justice Praxedis Möhring, Lawyer Dr. Sven Ufe Tjarks
Further functions: Prof. Dr. Joachim N. Stolterfoht (auditor), Lawyer Dr. Sven Ufe Tjarks (secretary)

Address

"Freiburger Rechtshistorische Gesellschaft e.V."
c/o Institute for Legal History and Comparative Legal History
Section for German Legal History
Platz der Alten Synagoge
79085 Freiburg
Germany