Undergraduate Course: A Global History of Law: Premodern Canons, Codes and Courts (HIST10532)
Course Outline
| School | School of History, Classics and Archaeology |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 4 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| SCQF Credits | 40 |
ECTS Credits | 20 |
| Summary | Modernity is often characterised by the centrality of the rule of law, but what about the premodern world? This course offers a critical examination of global legal systems from ca. 700 to 1500 CE, exploring how judges, jurists, lawyers, and rulers produced and implemented laws across premodern Asia, Africa, and Europe. It examines how diverse legal systems developed in parallel and/or interacted with one another, focusing on transregional and transtemporal connections within legal cultures, while challenging the state-centric view of a monopoly over law. |
| Course description |
The rule of law has long been a hallmark of modern democratic states, institutions, and individuals. In fact, modernity itself is often defined by how law takes centre stage. But what about the premodern world? This course offers a critical examination of prominent legal traditions from ca. 700 to 1500 CE within a global historical framework. It explores how judges, jurists, lawyers, and rulers produced and implemented laws across premodern Asia, Africa, and Europe.
After an analytical introduction to various legal traditions, we will explore the processes of producing, interpreting, administering, and learning law. We will examine how legal practices were connected, translated, and adapted across different spatial and temporal contexts. In addition to key themes such as the development of legislation through canons and codes and the philosophical foundations of global law, we will also delve into emerging themes in the global history of law, such as emotions, senses, and biases in courtrooms, as well as the role of academic and scribal cultures and documentary regimes, from forgeries to libels. Each session will feature excerpts from foundational legal texts that shaped the medieval world, alongside intriguing legal cases drawn from primary sources. In doing so, we will uncover how diverse systems developed in parallel and/or interacted with one another, while challenging the modernist view of the state's monopoly over law.
The study of History inevitably involves the study of difficult topics that we encourage students to approach in a respectful, scholarly, and sensitive manner. Nevertheless, we remain conscious that some students may wish to prepare themselves for the discussion of difficult topics. In particular, the course organiser has outlined that the following topics may be discussed in this course, whether in class or through required or recommended primary and secondary sources: sexual violence, racial violence, enslavement, and physical and mental torture. While this list indicates sensitive topics students are likely to encounter, it is not exhaustive because course organisers cannot entirely predict the directions discussions may take in tutorials or seminars, or through the wider reading that students may conduct for the course.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | A pass in 40 credits of third level historical courses or equivalent.
Students should only be enrolled on this course with approval from the History Honours Programme Administrator. |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2025/26, Not available to visiting students (SS1)
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Quota: 0 |
| Course Start |
Full Year |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
400
(
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 42,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 8,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
350 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
80 %,
Practical Exam
20 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
Non-Written Skills: «br /»
2 x 10 minute presentations (each worth 10%) «br /»
«br /»
Coursework:«br /»
2 x 6000-word Essays (each worth 40%) |
| Feedback |
Students will receive feedback on their coursework, and will have the opportunity to discuss that feedback further with the Course Organiser during their published office hours for this course or by appointment. |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Describe and analyse how law was created and functioned in the medieval world, distinguishing it from contemporary systems.
- Demonstrate a clear understanding of major legal systems in Asia, Africa, and Europe before 1500 CE.
- Identify key concerns and issues in medieval law, and compare and contrast these across different global legal traditions.
- Approach legal texts and cases as primary sources for socio-cultural and economic historical studies.
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Reading List
- Fernanda Pirie, The Rule of Laws: A 4000-Year Quest to Order the World (London: Profile Books, 2021).
- Janos Jany, Legal Traditions in Asia: History, Concepts and Laws (Cham: Springer, 2020).
- Markus D. Dubber and Christopher Tomlins, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Legal History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018).
- C. H. Alexandrowicz, The Law of Nations in Global History, eds. David Armitage and Jennifer Pitts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017).
- James A. Brundage, The Medieval Origins of the Legal Profession: Canonists, Civilians, and Courts (Chicago and London: Chicago University Press, 2008).
- H. Patrick Glenn, Legal Traditions of the World: Sustainable Diversity in Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).
- Patrick Wormald, Legal Culture in the Early Medieval West (London and Rio Grande: The Hambledon Press, 1999).
- Elizabeth Makowski, Canon Law and Cloistered Women: Periculoso and Its Commentators, 1298-1545 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1997).
- Rebecca R. French, The Golden Yoke: The Legal Cosmology of Buddhist Tibet (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995).
- Donald R. Kelley, History, Law and the Human Sciences: Medieval and Renaissance Perspectives (Varioum, 1984)
- Julian H Franklin, Jean Bodin and the Sixteenth-century Revolution in the Methodology of Law and History (New York: Columbia University Press, 1963).
- Frederick G. Kempin Jr.,Legal History: Law and Social Change (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1963). |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
- The ability to approach historical issues from a global perspective, through connected and comparative methods.
- An understanding of major sources, debates, and approaches to the study of law in key premodern world regions and religions.
- The ability to analyse diverse primary sources within the context of historiographical debates and perspectives.
- Skills to design, plan, and execute an independent research project based on both primary and secondary sources.
- Written and oral communication skills for clear conveyance of knowledge and observations to diverse audiences. |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Mahmood Kooria
Tel:
Email: mahmood.kooria@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | |
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