The codicological turn has been a game-changer in studying early medieval legal cultures over the past 40 years. The pioneering work of Hubert Mordek, Rosamond McKitterick, and others has shown that legal manuscripts were unique collections of texts, sometimes fragmentary and marred by scribal errors, but always connected to specific interests and local production conditions. This shift has led historians to turn from studying texts presented in critical editions to studying texts transmitted in manuscripts. The enormous increase in digitized manuscripts has further reinforced this “whole-book approach” in recent years. Today, it is no longer possible to conduct research into the legal history of the early Middle Ages while ignoring where and when individual manuscripts were created and transmitted. The whole-book approach is a method that underpins our international research collaboration that lasted for four years and materialized in biannual Zoom meetings. In taking an interdisciplinary approach, historians, legal historians, and art historians from Germany, Austria, France, Italy, the U.S.A., and Japan have analysed individual early medieval law manuscripts of the Carolingian empire, where Roman, Frankish, and other legal traditions coexisted and became deeply influenced by ecclesiastical law. This conference is the second of two concluding events — the first having occurred at the University of Tokyo in March 2024 – and will try to enhance our understanding by working on a typology of early medieval legal manuscripts.
Organizers: Stefan Esders, Shigeto Kikuchi, Karl Ubl
Sponsored by: JSPS Fund for the Promotion of Joint International Research (Fostering Joint International Research (B)) (19KK0014); North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences, Humanities and the Arts
Credits: St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 731, p. 44 – Lex Romana Visigothorum, Lex Salica, Lex Alamannorum; http://www.e-codices.ch/en/csg/0731
