Author: John Cairns

On 6 September 2021, Lord Matthews sentenced Nathan Shaw and John Lawrie to imprisonment. The report of his sentencing statement reveals that the two had earlier pled guilty to the crime of Hamesucken. The facts reveal that the accused did indeed pursue someone into his house in order to assault him, classic hamesucken. The report of the sentencing statement https://www.judiciary.scot/home/sentences-judgments/sentences-and-opinions/2021/09/06/hma-v-nathan-shaw-and-john-lawrie suggests that the indictment had used “hamesucken” as a nomen juris rather setting out an assault that was aggravated as to place. Hamesucken was a capital crime until 1887. The requirement of a nomen juris in an indictment was also abolished in 1887. The term has lingered on, however, often in references by judges to the formerly capital nature of offences committed by accused before them. The brief report of this on the twitter account of Judges Scotland elicited some comments of astonishment at the term. Indeed none of the newspaper reports that your blogger has found use the term, talking instead of the accused “pouncing” or “ambushing”.

The word was well known in Scots law in the past, and is an interesting example of the survival in Scots law of an Anglo-Saxon term and legal concept. It is interesting to note that the modern Danish “hjemsøge” and German “heimsuchen”, as well as their literal meaning, have the connotations of “hounding”, plaguing”, “persecuting” and “pestering” (I owe this insight to Professor Knud Haakonssen). The etymology can be further explored by reading Colman “Hamsocn: Its meaning and significance in early English law” (1981) 25 American Journal of Legal History, 95. Your blogger has always found hamesucken of interest and has discussed it in the past. That the term is found in Danish reminds your blogger of the fact that any Scot listening to popular “Scandi-noir” programmes on T.V. realises that Scots shares quite a number of words with the Nordic languages.

The Centre for Legal History at Edinburgh is delighted to note the publication by Cambridge University Press of Thai Legal History: From Traditional to Modern Law, edited by Andrew Harding and Munin Pongsapan. The latter wrote the thesis for his Edinburgh Ph.D. on “The Reception of Foreign Private Law in Thailand: A Case Study of Specific Performance”, and is currently serving as Dean of the Law School of Thammasat University. Andrew Harding is a noted comparative scholar and expert in Asian legal studies based ate National University of Singapore. This work will open to a wider world the rich content and the fascination of the legal history of Thailand. See https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/thai-legal-history/9921886F17F6CBE2E0B37FAB9B8F754E 

The field of legal history is currently represented at Tilburg Law School within the Department of Global Law and Governance by a team of 5 tenured/tenure track faculty (1 part-time professor, 1 associate professor, 3 assistant professors), plus a varying number of junior lecturers and PhD fellows. (See [here]). The group provides several mandatory courses at the bachelor level in the LLB Dutch Law (Europese Rechtsgeschiedenis, The World’s Legal Systems) and the LLB Global Law (History of International Law; Global Legal History). It also offers legal history courses in at the master level and general history courses in the University’s bachelor in Liberal Arts and Sciences. It presently has two main research focuses: history of international law and, more recently, history of economic law. Both are included in the department’s research program Global Law and Governance.

The new chair in legal history is expected to develop an own research line and provide intellectual inspiration and leadership to the legal historians at Tilburg. The acquisition of external research funding is part of the portfolio of tasks. She/he will take a prominent and visible role in teaching, both in the mandatory courses at the bachelor level and in optional courses at the master level. Teaching may both be in English as in Dutch. She/he will also be available for managerial tasks within the department and the law school.

The 25th British Legal History Conference 2022
In association with the Irish Legal History Society

Queen’s University, Belfast
6-9 July 2022

LAW AND CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGE

Abstracts are invited for the 25th BRITISH LEGAL HISTORY CONFERENCE which is being run jointly with the Irish Legal History Society and hosted by Queen’s University Belfast, on Wednesday 6 July – Saturday 9 July 2022.

The conference was originally scheduled for 2021. Queen’s, Belfast, was given the honour of hosting the BLHC in 2021, because it is a significant year in the “Decade of Centenaries” in Ireland, north and south, marking both the centenary of the opening in June 1921 of the Parliament of Northern Ireland, established under the Government of Ireland Act 1920, and the centenary of the signing of articles of agreement for the Anglo-Irish Treaty in December 1921, leading to the establishment of the Irish Free State. The conference theme, “Law and Constitutional Change”, was chosen against this background. The Covid-19 pandemic intervened, making postponement unavoidable.

Organising the conference in 2022 will, however, allow us to celebrate the half-centenary of the British Legal History Conference, first held in Aberystwyth in 1972. Our hope is that attendance at the conference can be in person, but this will be kept under review and, if necessary, the option of online attendance/participation will be considered.

Conference papers can examine from any historical perspective the relationship between law and constitutional change. The difficulty of defining constitutional change was noted by the Select Committee on the Constitution in their report, The Process of Constitutional Change (HL Paper 177, 2011, para. 10), but they identified several examples, without being exhaustive: parliamentary sovereignty; the rule of law and the rights and liberties of the individual; the union state; representative government; and state membership of international organisations, such as (then) the EU and the Commonwealth. These are, of course, only examples and the conference theme will be interpreted in all its breadth.

In the context of present-day analysis of the political and constitutional upheavals in British-Irish relations in the early 1920s, the President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, has adopted the Irish word, Machnamh, meaning reflection, contemplation, meditation and thought, for a series of online reflections – https://president.ie/en/diary/details/president-hosts-machnamh-100-event In the spirit of Machnamh, we invite you to join the conversation on law and constitutional change in Queen’s, Belfast, in July 2022.

————–

Please note the following rules:
– If you submitted an abstract in 2020, you must make a fresh submission.
– Abstracts must be for individual papers only, not for panels. Co-authored papers are acceptable.
– Only one abstract should be submitted per person.
– Abstracts must be submitted as Microsoft Word documents using the online portal on the Call for Papers page of the conference website. Please do not submit by email.
– Abstracts must not exceed 500 words.
– Please indicate if your proposal is contingent on the availability of an option of online participation.
– The deadline for submission of abstracts is Monday 27 September 2021.
– Queries can be emailed to BLHC-2022-info@qub.ac.uk
– At the conference, individual oral presentations will last 15-20 minutes.

We hope to publish the programme on the conference website in October 2021. Details of plenary speakers will also appear there in due course.

Proposals from postgraduate and early career researchers are welcome.

Further information about travel to Belfast, accommodation, and so on, will be added to the conference website during 2021-2022: https://www.qub.ac.uk/sites/BLH-Conference-2022/


Poster competition

This, the second joint BLHC – ILHS conference, was proposed by Sir Anthony Hart, retired High Court judge, former president of ILHS and enthusiastic supporter of BLHCs, who died suddenly in July 2019. A poster competition is planned during the 2022 conference as a tribute to Tony. There will be two prizes, including one for the PGR/early career category. The prizes are generously funded by the Journal of Legal History and by the Irish Legal History Society. Details of the competition will be posted on the conference website.

The Legal History Section of the Society of Legal Scholars and LSE’s Legal Biography Project are holding a joint online workshop on Legal Biographies on the afternoons of 9 and 10 September 2021.

The programme is as follows

9th September 15.00-18.00 BST: Lives in Context

15.05-15.55 BST: Morad El Kadmiri (UCL Faculty of Laws)

Wigmore and the Land of the Rising Sun: Revisiting Orientalism Through the Experience of a Late 19th Century Legal Westerniser

16.00-16.50 BST: Neil Harrison (Northumbria University)

Sir Joseph Cowen as Commissioner and Chairman of the Tyne Improvement Commission from 1850 to 1873: the Influence of his Networks on his Interpretation of the Law and his Actions

17.00-17.50 BST: Helen Rutherford (Northumbria University)

The People’s Judge: Examining the Life and Work of the Coroner for Newcastle upon Tyne 1857-1885

10th September 15.00-18.00 BST: Uses, Abuses and Methods in Legal Biographical Writing

15.05-15.55 BST: Sean Morris (University of Helsinki)

Walter George Frank Phillimore (1845 – 1929): The Early Years and Devotion to Church-Law Relations

16.00-16.50 BST: Charlotte Smith (University of Reading)

Legal Biography and Religion: Some Reflections

17.00-17.50 BST: John Tribe (University of Liverpool)

Pride & Posterity: A Reappraisal of the Earl of Birkenhead’s role in the passage of the Law of Property Act 1925

For further information, contact Victoria Barnes (barnes@lhlt.mpg.de)

You can register for this event via Eventbrite on https://www.eventbrite.com/e/legal-biography-workshop-tickets-162918711251.

The British press has recently reported two events of interest. One is the result of a fascinating archaeological dig, the other the product of a fantasy and indeed fake history.

Your blogger shall look at the fake history first. On Tuesday 17 August, about twenty individuals entered Edinburgh Castle, a major tourist attraction, without paying, and refused to leave. They claimed to be retaking it for the people under article 61 of Magna Carta. Magna Carta has, of course, and never has had, any authority in Scotland. At the time it was signed, Scotland and England were separate kingdoms, and as component parts of the Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, they retain separate laws and legal systems. Indeed, in any case, article 61 was also quickly removed from Magna Carta, and it most certainly did not entitle “the people” to take back power from the Crown. One could go on; but your blogger gathers from the press that anti-Lockdown protesters have regularly cited article 61 as entitling them to ignore restrictions: see https://fullfact.org/online/did-she-die-in-vain/

A variety of other claims about the government and the rule of law were made by the protestors; with these I shall not trouble readers of this Blog. Examination of the websites of a number of newspapers, such as The Times, The Guardian, and The Independent, should give curious readers the gist. Had a policeman not suffered a (fortunately) minor injury, it might have just been an amusing curiosity.

That the Magna Carta never applied in Scotland immediately leads to dismissal of these claims; but interpretation of historical documents by those who do not really understand them can lead to troubling results. Your blogger can here think of some of the discussions of the historical document now known as the Declaration of Arbroath, in reality a letter from the Scottish barons to the then Pope.

Turning to actual history, the British press has recently publicised the discovery of well-preserved human remains in a necropolis by Pompeii. The individual, a man of around 60, almost certainly Marcus Venerio Secundio, a freed slave, who rose to become guardian of the Temple of Venus and member of a college of priests. The remains are unusual as Romans were commonly created in this era, and the tomb also contains, in a glass urn, the ashes of Novia Amabilis, who may well have been his wife. What is also interesting is that an inscription records that Venerio Secundo organised spectacles in Greek and Latin for four days. Of course, educated Romans were bilingual in Greek and Latin, but this gives an indication of the persistence of a more popular knowledge of the language.

The domination of a stereotype of slavery based on chattel slavery in the Americas always makes of great interest such indications of freedom and success in the Roman world.

All working on French legal history will be aware of the great progress made in rendering secondary and primary material accessible on-line through the portals Persée, Gallica, and Cairn.Info. The parliamentary sessions of the Revolutionary Era are now being made accessible through Persée. See https://archives-parlementaires.persee.fr 

See http://esclh.blogspot.com/2021/06/database-archives-parlementaires-persee.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EuropeanSocietyForComparativeLegalHistory+%28EUROPEAN+SOCIETY+FOR+COMPARATIVE+LEGAL+HISTORY%29

The Centre for Reparation Research, University of the West Indies 

Applications are invited from suitably qualified persons for the position of Junior Research Fellow, The Centre for Reparation Research, The University of the West Indies, Vice-Chancellery. 

The Centre for Reparation Research at The University of the West Indies is seeking to hire a Junior Research Fellow for the period August 1, 2021 to July 31, 2023. The ideal candidate will have: 

 A Master’s Degree in History (or a related field) 

 Excellent research, analytical and proposal writing skills 

 An aptitude for research dissemination and advocacy on electronic, print and social media 

 A knowledge of critical issues in human rights & the global movement for reparatory justice 

 Excellent inter-personal skills 

 Excellent time management skills 

 Proficiency in the English Language (A working knowledge of French and/or Spanish would be an asset). 

The successful candidate will have a good work ethic, excellent interviewing skills and the ability to work on his/her own. She/he is to be a firm believer in reparation and will have to maintain confidentiality. 

The Junior Research Fellow must have a solid working knowledge of MS Word, Outlook, and Excel and database management, as he/she will collect and analyze data or to manage and update existing datasets. He/she will also conduct literature reviews or field research. 

Interested persons are being asked to send detailed applications giving i) full particulars of qualifications and experience, biodata; and ii) the names, titles, mailing and e-mail addresses, fax and telephone numbers of three (3) referees as soon as possible to: 

UNIVERSITY REGISTRAR, OFFICE OF ADMINISTRATION, THE VICE CHANCELLERY, UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST INDIES, MONA, KINGSTON 7, JAMAICA, W.I. ATTN: Mrs. Deon Nicely-Simpson, Email: oadmin@uwimona.edu.jm OR deon.simpson@uwimona.edu.jm 

For further information about the Centre for Reparation Research, email reparation.research@uwimona.edu.jm. The deadline for application is June 25, 2021. Only shortlisted applicants will be contacted. 

RESEARCH PROFESSOR IN MODERN LEGAL HISTORY (BOFZAP)

(ref. BZP-2021-12)

Last modification : Monday, June 7, 2021

Your blogger may add that Leuven is one of the most attractive University Towns in Northern Europe, close to Brussels and Brussels airport. It has a fine tradition in Legal History. The late Laurent Waelkens, one of the kindest men, led and developed an excellent team.

The significance and implications of Scots studying law abroad have long interested and intrigued your blogger. Of course, most attention has been devoted to study in the Northern Netherlands. The connections of Scotland and the Low Countries have recently been the subject of two excellent programmes by the broadcaster Billy Kay. The first one, “Will Ye gae tae Flanders”, explores the links between Scotland and Flanders, covering Flemings coming to Scotland, bringing skills and expertise, as well as Scots trading in wool, notably with Bruges, which, for a while, was the Scottish staple port. Flemish influenced the Scots language. As well as the obvious surname “Fleming”, many other Scottish names have a Flemish origin. They assimilated into all ranks of Scottish society; many Scots correspondingly settled in Bruges as merchants. This is also reflected in Scottish political links with the Duchy Of Burgundy, once Flanders became under the control of the Dukes. The second is a programme is entitled “The Scots Dutchmen”. This focuses on the move of the Scottish links to the Netherlands, to the north, to the United Provinces, for whose independence from the Spanish Habsburgs many Scots fought in the Eighty Years War, and indeed for whom many continued to fight in the Scots Brigade. Significant in this was the shared Calvinism of the Northern Netherlands and the Scots. The Scottish staple moved north eventually settling in Campvere. The northern Netherlands now became a major focus for Scottish trade and intellectual life, as many Scots traders settled there while many Scots students studied in the Universities of the United Provinces, notably Utrecht and Leiden. There Scottish students learned law, notably the Roman (or Civil) law central to Scots legal practice, theology, and medicine, all, of course, taught in the lingua franca of Latin. But students did not confine themselves to narrow disciplines, but law students might also study chemistry or mathematics, and all might takes classes in dancing, fencing, horse-riding, and other skills necessary for gentlemen, while visiting relatives serving in the Dutch army. Utrecht was popular, as Scots students could there mingle with the local Dutch gentry, who spoke French, a language much desired by these young gentlemen. The great reforming Principal of Edinburgh University, Carstares, spent years in exile in the United Provinces, and his reforms drew on his experience and knowledge of the Dutch universities. The liberal, late-Humanism of Dutch culture of this period had an important impact on the Scottish Enlightenment. These programmes, involving interviews with noted scholars on either side of the connecting North Sea, are currently available on the BBC, are recommended as a good introduction https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000tt32/episodes/player

Scottish study in the United Provinces tailed off, basically ceased, after 1750. But at its height it was noted as a phenomenon. Of course, Scots were not the only students to study there. People form many northern European countries studied in the Dutch Republic. A recent work on Swedish lawyers studying abroad raises many interesting issues in the mind of a Scottish scholar. It invites a detailed comparison, not possible here. This monograph is Learning Law and Travelling Europe: Study Journeys and the Developing Swedish Legal Profession, c. 1630-1800, published with Brill (ISBN 978-90-04-43165-2) in 2020 by Marianne Vasara-Aaltonen. She places the phenomenon of study abroad in the context of the developing Swedish state’s need for trained judges and trained administrators. One can point out among obvious differences that Scotland was not part of an absolutist state with similar bureaucratic requirements, while the legal histories of the two countries were in many ways very different. One can also note that the Swedish law students, like the Scots, rarely took degrees. Whereas many Scots who studied law in the Netherlands became advocates, this is not so clear for the Swedes. The peak of Swedish study in the United Provinces, was earlier than that of the Scots, possibly because the Thirty Years War made German universities, which attracted few Scots in this era, less appealing. This is a thought-provoking work, revealing the complexities of this phenomenon of foreign study. it is recommended.