New volume on merchants and their interaction in the late Middle Ages published
How to Ensure Predictability in Legal Pluralism. Merchants and their Interaction in Late Medieval Europe, edited by Ulla Kypta and Gregor Rohmann, is the latest volume in the Käte Hamburger Kolleg series. The ten contributions in this volume discuss various means used by medieval merchants to deal with legal pluralism in Northern Europe.
In situations where different normative frameworks overlapped, merchants had to constantly renegotiate which legal and social frameworks should govern their actions. The contributions in the volume examine these negotiation processes using various case studies from Northern Europe and show the means – from trust and diplomacy to violence and normative orders – by which actors responded to legal pluralism. This shows that merchants and their communities did not strive for the standardisation and harmonisation of laws in accordance with modern statehood, but rather for a strengthening of the position of their respective groups in a pluralistic normative field.
The series
The series ‚Einheit & Vielfalt im Recht | Legal Unity & Pluralism‘ is edited by Ulrike Ludwig and Peter Oestmann and is published by Böhlau Verlag. The series conceptualises legal pluralism as a structural characteristic of law itself. We can therefore speak of a relational and historically changeable association between unity and pluralism in law. The book series intends to comprehensively illuminate these connections in their cultural polymorphy interdisciplinarily, transspatially and interepochally. The volumes are published in German and English and are predominantly open-access.
Bibliographic Data
Gregor Rohmann/Ulla Kypta (Ed.): How to Ensure Predictability in Legal Pluralism. Merchants and their Interaction in Late Medieval Europe, 2025, 298 Seiten, gebunden (Einheit & Vielfalt im Recht / Legal Unity & Pluralism, Vol. 5), Böhlau, Druckausgabe: ISBN: 978-3-412-53376-2 , Preis 60,00 EUR; E-Book: ISBN: 978-3-412-53377-9 , Open-Access.