Konf: An Intellectual History of Legal History
The INTELLEX Symposium (12–13 June 2025), hybrid from the IFLG in Thurnau, Germany, explores the intellectual history of legal history through a diverse range of themes, periods, and regions. Participants examine how legal knowledge has been shaped, taught, and transmitted from the early modern period to the 20th century, across Europe and into colonial and post-colonial contexts.
Keynote Speakers:
Heikki Pihlajamäki, University of Helsink: "How legal histories are written: codification, modernization and taxonomy of law."
Sören Koch, University of Bergen: "From the spirit of legislation to the spirit of law – changing perspectives on legal history in Denmark and Norway"
Key themes include:
Codification and conceptual foundations of law (e.g., Roszkowski on international law, Conring on the Holy Roman Empire)
Interdisciplinary intersections between law, theology, medicine, and philosophy (e.g., Zacchia’s forensic medicine, Conring’s Hermetic medicine).
Pedagogical and institutional developments in legal education (e.g., French and Hungarian curricula, Tunisian visual legal culture).
Colonial legal systems and their legacies, with case studies from Rwanda and Tunisia.
Intellectual biographies of influential legal thinkers like Mancini, Eckhart, and others.
The symposium spans Europe (France, Italy, Hungary, Poland, Germany, Scandinavia) and North and East Africa (Tunisia, Rwanda), covering periods from the 17th to the 20th century, and reflects on how legal history has been written, taught, and politically instrumentalized.
Thursday 12 June 2025
11:00-12:00 Guided Tour of the Thurnau Castle: Marcus Mühlnikel
12:00-13:30 Lunch
13:30-13:45 Welcome and Introduction to the Institute for Franconian Regional History (IFLG): Frank Ejby Poulsen, Martin Ott
13:45-14:30 Keynote (30 minutes + 15 minutes discussion): "How legal histories are written: codification, modernization and taxonomy of law", Heikki Pihlajamäki
14:30-15:30 Panel 1: The Use of History in the Theory and Practice of Law: Codification, Concepts, and Origins (20 minutes each paper + 10 minute-discussion per paper after all presentations)
14:30-14:50 "The Codification of Public International Law (of Nations) with the Example of the Law of War: the Case of Gustaw Roszkowski": Paweł Fiktus
14:50-15:10 "Hermann Conring and the Legal History of the Holy Roman Empire", Frank Ejby Poulsen
15:10-15:30 Discussion
15:30-16:00 Coffee Break
16:00-17:00 Panel 2: Theology, Medicine, History, and Legal Studies: Early Modern Knowledge Paradigms (20 minutes each paper + 10 minute-discussion per paper after all presentations)
16:00-16:20 "Conring’s De Hermetica medicina between Ancient Wisdom and Iatrophilology", Stefano Gulizia
16:20-16:40 "Between Ius Criminalis and Forensic Medicine: the impact of Paolo Zacchia (1584-1659) on Legal Science", Emilia Musumeci
16:40-17:00 Discussion
17:00-18:00 Panel 3: Actors of Exchange: Influential Legal Historians and the Legacy of their Concepts (20 minutes each paper + 10 minute-discussion per paper after all presentations)
17:00-17:20 "Taking Machiavelli seriously: Pasquale Stanislao Mancini and the renewal of Italian Legal Science", Ricardo Cavallo
17:20-17:40 "Between Idealism and Materialism - The Eckhart debate", Imre Képessy
17:40-18:00 Discussion
19:00 Dinner
Friday 13 June 2025
09:00-09:45 Keynote (30 minutes + 15 minutes discussion): "From the Spirit of Legislation to the Spirit of Law – Changing Perspectives on Legal History in Denmark and Norway", Sören Koch
09:45-10:45 Panel 4: History of the Teaching of Legal History: Temporality and Spatiality in Academic Curriculae (20 minutes each paper + 10 minute-discussion per paper after all presentations)
09:45-10:05 "Temporality in French legal history books, 1880-1954", Samantha Pratali
10:05-10:25 "From Imperial through Universal to the Comparative – The History of Non-Hungarian Legal History at ELTE Eötvös Loránd University from 1861", Balázs Rigó
10:25-10:45 Discussion
10:45-11:15 Coffee Break
11:15-12:15 Panel 5: Institutions and areas of exchange: Legal Knowledge Constructions through Visualisation in Colonial and Post-colonial Settings (20 minutes each paper + 10 minute-discussion per paper after all presentations)
11:15-11:35 "Legal history as arbitrary history. Reflections on violence and 'lawless' spaces during the German colonisation of Rwanda", Anne Peiter
11:35-11:45 "Museum or law school?: The contribution of the Palais Ksar Essaid painting collection to the writing of the history of modern Tunisian political law", Ghazi Gherairi
11:45-12:15 Discussion
12:15-13:00 Future Plans
