Theologians and Contract Law

The Moral Transformation of the Ius Commune (Ca. 1500-1650)
Erscheinungsjahr 2023
ISBN: 978-90-04-53677-7
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 9/4, 724 Seiten, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 1066 g

Reihe: Legal History Library / Studies in the History of Private Law

The Roman legal tradition is the ancestor of modern contract law but there is no agreement as to how and when a general law of contract emerged. Wim Decock’s thesis is that an important step in this evolution was taken by theologians in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. They transformed the Roman legal tradition (ius commune) by insisting on the moral foundations of contract law. Theologians emphasized that the enforceability of contracts is based on voluntary consent and that a contract should not enrich one party at another's expense. While their main concern was the salvation of souls, theologians played a key role in the development of a systematic contract law in which the founding principles were freedom and fairness.

Theologians and Contract Law is winner of the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz-Preis 2014 (German Research Foundation) as well as the Raymond Derine Prijs 2012 (Raymond Derine PhD Prize) and the ASL-Prijs Humane Wetenschappen 2012 (ASL Award for Humanities 2012) by the Academische Stichting Leuven. Decock's book is also awarded the "Juristisches Buch des Jahres" (Law book of the year) by Neue Juristische Wochenschrift (47/2013: 3420).

Autoren/Hrsg.

Decock, Wim

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Rechtsphilosophie, Rechtsethik
• Rechtswissenschaften Recht, Rechtswissenschaft Allgemein Rechtsphilosophie, Rechtsethik
• Rechtswissenschaften Recht, Rechtswissenschaft Allgemein Rechtstheorie, Rechtsmethodik, Rechtsdogmatik, Rechtsprechungslehre
• Rechtswissenschaften Recht, Rechtswissenschaft Allgemein Rechtsgeschichte, Recht der Antike

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgment
Prologue
Notes on the Text and its Modes of Reference

1 Method and Direction
2 Theologians and Contract Law: Contextual Elements
3 Toward a General Law of Contract
4 Natural Limitations on 'Freedom of Contract'
5 Formal Limitations on 'Freedom of Contract'
6 Substantive Limitations on 'Freedom of Contract'
7 Fairness in Exchange
8 Theologians and Contract Law: Common Themes

Bibliography
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Wim Decock (1983), Ph.D. in Law (2011), KU Leuven and Roma Tre, is assistant professor at the Faculty of Law, at KU Leuven and affiliated researcher at the Max-Planck-Institute for Legal History in Frankfurt/Main (LOEWE Research Focus Judicial and Extrajudicial Conflict Resolution).