EDINBURGH STUDIES IN LAW Series Editor: Elspeth Christie Reid Volume 15 Reassessing Legal Humanism and its Claims Petere Fontes? Edited by Paul J du Plessis and John W Cairns Essays challenging the nature and legacy of legal humanism Legal humanism has become deeply entrenched in most modern works on European legal history from the seventeenth century onwards and has been accepted with such blind faith by many modern scholars that few have challenged its ethos and credo. The consequence is that scholars who have accepted the traditional view have used it to substantiate larger claims about the death of Roman law, the separation between the golden age of a pan-European medieval ius commune and the fragmented reception of Roman law into the nation states of Europe, and the relevance of 'dogmatic' Roman law as opposed to 'antiquarian' Roman law. In recent years, as the traditional grand narratives of European legal history have begun to be questioned, it has become clear that the nature and legacy of legal humanism deserves closer scrutiny. Building on the groundbreaking work by Douglas Osler, who has been critical of the traditional narratives, this volume sets out to interrogate the orthodox views regarding legal humanism and its legacy. As a fundamental reassessment of the nature and impact of legal humanism on the narrative of European legal history, this volume brings together the foremost international experts in related fields of legal and intellectual history to debate the central issues. Paul J du Plessis is a legal historian whose research focuses predominantly on the multifaceted and complex set of relationships between law and society in a historical context. He is the editor (with John W Cairns) of Beyond Dogmatics: Law and Society in the Roman World (Edinburgh University Press, 2007) and of The Creation of the Ius Commune: From Casus to Regula (Edinburgh University Press, 2010). He is also the sole editor of the critically acclaimed New Frontiers: Law and Society in the Roman World (Edinburgh University Press, 2013). John W Cairns is Professor of Civil Law at the University of Edinburgh. His research interests include law and the Enlightenment, the history of Scots law, codification in Louisiana, and law and slavery. He is the editor (with Paul J du Plessis) of Beyond Dogmatics: Law and Society in the Roman World (Edinburgh University Press, 2007) and of The Creation of the Ius Commune: From Casus to Regula (Edinburgh University Press, 2010).