(image source: MPILHLT ) Prof. Dave De ruysscher presents tomorrow at the prestigious Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory in Frankfurt am Main. Abstract: For a long time, the history of commercial law in the later Middle Ages and early modern period was categorized in terms of a spontaneous emergence of norms (consuetudo mercatorum, lex mercatoria). Over the past decades, the influence of jurists and urban administrators has been emphasized more. However, what is lacking is an explanatory framework that captures the coming into being of rules relating to mercantile contracts and situations, as well as their canonization. The dichotomies of local versus transnational, customary versus official, mercantile versus juristic and merchant versus state fall short when the focus is on these problems. Challenges that impede with this exercise have to do with the relationship between law and the economy and the contribution of different social groups to the ...
