VUB Contextual Research in Law

  (image source: Brill ) dr. Stefano Cattelan (with Prof. Louis Sicking/VU Amsterdam-Leiden) and Prof. Frederik Dhondt published articles in the first issue of Grotiana 's volume XLVI. Read the articles here : DOI 10.1163/18760759-46010013  and DOI 10.1163/18760759-46010011.

  (image source: Belgian State Archives ) drs. Antoine Leclère (Joint PhD Candidate VUB/ULiège-FNRS PhD Fellow) published an article in the Revue d'Histoire liégeoise , published by the Belgian State Archives, in the thematic issue  Il y a 230 ans, la fin de la principauté de Liège . Read more here .

  (click on image to enlarge) Dr. Stefano Cattelan will present on Venetian maritime policies between justice and sovereignty, at the lecture series History & Law Encounters , organised by prof. Elisabetta Fusar Poli and Federica Paletti at the University of Brescia. more information on the image above.

  Praktijkassistent Vincenzo De Meulenaere was te gast in het programma de Afspraak  (VRT Canvas), om er zijn boek Coudenberg   voor te stellen. Meer informatie hier .

In the second semester, the Contextual Research in Law research group will host a series of guest lectures and symposia: February 25, 2025 : Dr. Marie-Sophie Silan (Visiting Professor, ULiège) on Gender and Law in the Prince-Bishopric of Liège (English) [B 4.08, 12:30] March 13–15, 2025 : EUTopia Connected Learning Community Legal History Peak Event: Individual and Collective Rights in Legal History [Warwick] – For more information, contact Prof. Dr. Frederik Dhondt March 18, 2025 : Dr. François Pierrard (Postdoc, FRNS/UCLouvain) on Goswin de Fierlant and the Enlightened Codification of Criminal Law (Dutch) [B 4.08, 12:30] March 31, 2025 : Prof. Dr. Lauréline Fontaine (Université Paris 3 – Sorbonne Nouvelle) on The Constitution as a Social Fetish (English, Legal Theory Seminar) [C 4.09, 16:00] – For more information, contact Prof. Dr. Laurent De Sutter April 1, 2025 : Book presentation Coudenberg. Th...

        The Worlds of Pre-Modern Neutrality (ca. 1400-1800):  Norms, Institutions and Practices    Antwerp, Hendrik Conscience Heritage Library - 8-9 May 2025   Convened by Stefano  Cattelan  & Frederik  Dhondt  (Vrije Universiteit Brussel)   Supported by FWO Junior Fundamental Research Project G016122N,  In the Shadow of the Great Powers: Freedom of the Sea and Neutrality in the Long Eighteenth Century  (2024-2026)  _____________________________________________________ (image source:  Conscience Heritage Library ) DAY 1 (May 8) Hendrik Conscienceplein 4, 2000 ANTWERP (Nottebohm Room) 9:30 – 9:45 - Welcoming  Stefano  Cattelan  & Frederik  Dhondt   9:45 – 10:45 - Keynote n.1 :  Silvia  Marzagalli  (Université Côte d’Azur), ‘ Eighteenth-century neutrality: a view from the sea’ 10:45 – 11:00: Coffee break    11:00 – 12:15 - Panel I  ...

Dr. Stefano Cattelan (pp. 125-152) and Prof. Frederik Dhondt (pp. 153-176) authored chapters in the edited volume  Soggettività contestate e diritto internazionale in età moderna  (eds. Giuseppina de Giudici, Dante Fedele & Elisabetta Fiocchi Malaspina), vol. 9 of the series "Collana di studi di storia del diritto medievale e moderno" (edited by Paolo Alvazzi del Frate, Giovanni Rossi and Elio Tavilla).  Abstract of Challenging empires: pirates, privateers and the Europeanisation of ocean spaces (c. 1500-1650)  (dr. Stefano Cattelan): Throughout the Middle  Ages, piracy and hybrid warfare  (public/ private) remained endemic across the seas surrounding the European continent. Once Spain and Portugal opened new sailing routes towards the Americas and East Asia, these phenomena rapidly assumed an all-new geographical scale. With the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494), Spain and Portugal divided the Atlantic Ocean into two exclusive spheres of infl uence. In re...

  (image source: NAM ) Dr. Stefano Cattelan published two book reviews in the Nuova Antologia Militare  (nr. 15/2023): - Svante Norrhem & Eric Thomson, Subsidies, Diplomacy, and State Formation in Europe, 1494-1789. Economies of Allegiance - Alexandre Joubelin, Par le fer et par le feu. Combattre dans l'Atlantique (XVIe-XVIIe siècles) The full issue can be read in open access here .

  (Image source: Facultas ) Prof. Frederik Dhondt contributed to the Festschrift for prof. Gilbert Gornig (Marburg).  Abstract: This contribution to the Festschrift of Prof. G. Gornig sheds light on a famous 18th century manuscript on the institutional structure of the Austrian Low Countries. I first illustrate the author's unique position (I), before delving into the issues of allegiance, taxation and consent (II). This contribution is part of the ongoing engagement of our research group with the Transkribus HTR technology. Special thanks go to teaching assistant Vincenzo de Meulenaere ,  student-researchers Max Van den Bosch and Senne De Kerpel , as well as to former research student Leen Elewaut . This chapter is in open access:  10.5771/9783748941095-749 .

(image: the former Mulhouse Town Hall, currently museum of the Republic of Mulhouse ) Prof. Dhondt gave a lecture at La Forge de L'Histoire , a history popularisation initiative animated by professors, lecturers and students of the Université de Haute Alsace (Mulhouse) on 8 February 2023, organised on the campus "La Fonderie". Read more on the initiative on its website . The student team edited and published a podcast of the recording, which can be consulted on Spotify .

  (image source: Routledge ) Dr. Stefano Cattelan published a review article on J.D. Davies, A. James & G. Rommelse (eds.), Ideologies of Western Naval Power, c. 1500-1815  in the journal The Mariner's Mirror. The International Quarterly Journal of The Society for Nautical Research  CIX (2023), nr. 1, 104-107. The book review can be consulted  on Routledge's website (DOI 10.1080/00253359.2022.2124721 ).

  (image source: NAM ) Prof. Frederik Dhondt published an article (pp. 535-642) in the peer reviewed open access journal Nuova Antologia Militare with the title "Bringing the divided Powers of Europe nearer one another: The Congress of Soissons, 1728-1730". Abstract: This contribution reconstructs the Congress of Soissons (1728-1730), a consequence of the Parisian Preliminaries (31 May 1727), an agreement that prevented the eruption of a general war in Europe between the League of Hanover (France, Britain-Hanover, Dutch Republic) and the League of Vienna (Emperor, Spain, Brandenburg-Prussia). The ‘sleeping’ congress did not generate a final peace agreement. Soissons was a congress of peacekeeping (Burkhardt), and in part contributed to the European culture of peace engineering (Ghervas). Besides the central commercial claims that opposed the Maritime Powers to Spain, the delegations reflected on geopolitical questions from the East Indies to Scandinavia, the Baltic and the M...