Le "vir bonus" apparaît à de nombreuses reprises dans les sources littéraires. Néanmoins, le"vir bonus" n’est pas seulement un idéal éthique, mais il est un critère herméneutique qui permet d’interpréter et de compléter des actes juridiques. C’est dans ce sens technique que les jurisconsultes y ont recours, au moins dès le IIe siècle av. J.-C.Le vir bonus doit être encadré dans le phénomène plus large de l’arbitrage à Rome et il doit être distinct de l’"arbiter ex compromisso". Il est surtout employé dans le domaine du droit des obligations et du droit des successions. Il est donc utilisé pour les actes juridiques bilatéraux et unilatéraux. Parfois le renvoi à l’homme de bien implique la présence d’un tiers qui est appelé à décider comme le ferait un "vir bonus" ; il a toutefois souvent une valeur objective.Dans cette hypothèse, le jugement de l’homme de bien (arbitratus boni viri) a une valeur abstraite. Si un lien existe entre les concepts de "vir bonus" et de "bona fides", le critère herméneutique de l’homme de bien est utilisé aussi dans des actes juridiques qui sont sanctionnés par une action "stricti iuris". L’emploi de l’"arbitratus boni viri" permet de rendre plus flexible le jugement sans pour autant remettre en cause la nature de droit strict de l’action. / The “vir bonus” is often mentioned in the sources. However, the “vir bonus” is not only an ethical ideal, but also a hermeneutic criterion that allows us to interpret and integrate the legal acts. This is the technical meaning given to it by the jurisconsults, at least starting from the II century a.C..The “vir bonus” should be replaced in the general context of Roman arbitration and distinguished from the “arbiter ex compromisso”. In particular, the “vir bonus” is used the field of obligation and inheritance rights. Therefore, it is used in bilateral as well as unilateral judiciary stores. At times, speaking of the “vir bonus” a third party is implied, called into question through the role and actions of a “vir bonus”; however, this third party often has an objective value. In this hypothesis, an honest man’s judgment (“arbitratus boni viri”) has an abstract value. Even though there is a link between the concepts of “vir bonus” and “bona fides”, the hermeneutic criterion of the “vir bonus” is also used in the actions that are “stricti iuris”. The use of the “arbitrates”“boni viri” allows judgment to be more flexible without questioning the “stricti iuris” nature of the action.

This dissertation reconstructs Ashkenazi and Sephardi German Jews’ intensive pursuit of civil and religious rights before Germany’s Imperial Supreme Court (Reichskammergericht, the Imperial Chamber Court) in the context of the wide-ranging religious and legal reforms in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Through my systematic analysis of 75,000 court records and my examinations of manuscripts and early printed materials from more than thirty archives across three continents, I study hundreds of previously untapped Supreme Court cases alongside religious and legal sources in German, Hebrew, Yiddish, Spanish, Portuguese, and Latin. I take an integrative approach to this wealth of sources to argue that by using the Supreme Court in numbers that far exceeded their proportion of the population, including in matters that pertained to Jewish law, this litigious minority generated grounds for inter-religious exchanges with the court’s Christian lawyers and judges. These lawyers endeavored to understand and incorporate Jewish law into imperial procedure, not merely due to their commitment to conflict resolution, but also due to their interest in advancing the universal applicability of Roman law as a sophisticated tool to conjoin the different limbs of the empire into a cohesive state. These efforts led the Supreme Court, and therefore the state, to protect rabbinic law and secure the continuation of a Jewish presence in Germany, thus moving in an opposite direction from key religious reformers and local authorities. This dissertation reveals that the study of Jews’ surprising strategies of interconnecting law and religion in defense of themselves and their religious laws promoted Jews’ civil rights in radical ways, and attained a de facto status of imperial citizenship for Ashkenazi and Sephardi-Portuguese Jews. Unearthing knowledge from the archives, this dissertation redraws the porous boundaries between Jewish and non-Jewish legal cultures and calls for a reconsideration of early modes of Jewish citizenship. Showing how Jewish women and men, including Iberian refugees, employed litigation as an anti-nomadic tool against pending expulsions, this dissertation also challenges prevalent conventions on weak Jewish responses to persecution, forced migration, and the agency that ethnic and religious minorities can wield in state-building processes.

Analysis of the adoption of selected principles of the Roman inheritance law in Central Europe Abstract The diploma thesis deals with the analysis of selected principles of Roman inheritance law and their reception in the legal systems of Central Europe, specifically in the Austrian General Civil Code of 1811 and the Czech Civil Code of 2012. It does so through the study of ancient legal sources, modern Roman law literature, modern laws and relevant commentary literature. To compare the application of Roman law principles in modern law, the principle of compulsory share and the principle of nemo pro parte testatus, pro parte intestatus decedere potest were chosen. Since the reasons of delatio hereditatis and the principles belonging to them represent one of the pillars of the theoretical structure of inheritance law, it is appropriate to stress their Roman law roots. The reason for this examination is also the fact that in many modern codifications of civil law, Roman law is highlighted as an ideal model, and it is therefore necessary to examine whether modern legislation is really influenced by Roman law and whether it is not just a pleasing proclamation by the legislator. The diploma thesis deals with the development of the mentioned principles in the Roman history and also with exceptions from these...

This dissertation examines the intersection of the prosecution of criminal justice, sexual morality and the family at the parlement of Paris, which was the highest court of appeal in France, during the height of its power and influence in the kingdom from 1564-1655. This dissertation argues that in its adjudication of the crimes of seduction, infanticide, adultery, and bigamy the parlement of Paris interpreted the law according to a paternal theory of state by prioritizing family integrity and patriarchal honour in its decisions. In so doing, it presents a unique synthesis of statute and published legal opinion with a systematic survey of judicial decisions, based on archival findings, relating to these sex crimes in early modern France. It concludes that these judicial decisions were ensconced in the concepts of family, the king’s justice, and sovereignty, which were foundational to the interconnected theories of state and society in early modern France. The parlement tended to separate elite and modest appellants according to the socio-economic priorities of lignage and ménage, or the protection of the integrity of elite lineages and the stability of artisanal households within broader networks of family and community. Ultimately, this study exposes the expectations and values that gendered authority placed on men and women in early modern French society, reveals the ways that the most powerful judges in France interpreted the law according to these values, and unveils the narratives that women and men crafted when they confronted these expectations before these powerful judges. In so doing, this dissertation sheds new light on the relationships between gender and the law, gender relations in state and society, and the lived experience of marriage in early modern France. / Graduate / 2022-08-09

The following work is the result of three years of research for my Ph.D. at the University of Trento, Faculty of Law. The aim of my research is to give an account of the Etruscan legal system by analysing both direct and indirect sources. For this, I have attempted to use historical, linguistic, and epigraphical methods and instruments, combining them to offer the most complete view of one of the most influential cultures in the Italian peninsula before the rise of Rome. The first chapter is an account of the historical evolution of the Etruscan ethnos from the Bronze age to the end of the I century b.C., focusing mainly on the socioeconomic drives that informed public affairs and the complex exchequer of international events. This part is based on indirect sources, such as literary ones. The second chapter is an attempt to offer a short linguistic vademecum, focused mainly on Etruscan alphabet and morphology, with some remarks regarding the origins of Etruscan language and alphabet. The third chapter is the analysis of the direct sources, mostly epigraphic ones. I have chosen the most relevant legal epigraphs that have yet been discovered and have proceeded to study them, attempting (where possible) some parallels with roman law. After the general conclusions, I deemed it appropriate to add two appendixes concerning Etruscan amgistratures and a short legal lexicon. The work is closed by some hand-drawn maps and the most important epigraphs.

The South African concept of freedom of testation is one of the most absolute concepts of freedom of testation in westernised legal systems. It is suggested that the South African concept of freedom of testation is a memento of capitalist patriarchy. As the South African legal system practices a nearly absolute concept of freedom of testation, capitalist patriarchy has maintained masculine control of property in South Africa and perpetuated the systems of male dominance prevalent in South Africa. Freedom of testation allows for wealth to pass from one male to another. It also allows entrenched gender roles to continue by excluding women from inheriting. Thus the South African law of testate succession and its central concept of freedom of testation allows for discrimination on the ground of gender. / Jurisprudence / LL.M

Text in Afrikaans / Theft in South African law is one of the most well-known common law crimes. It is also one of the crimes in respect of which opinions vary considerably. Furtum possessionis is one of the manifestations of the crime of theft at common law. The general requirements of furtum possessionis were already established in Roman law. Emphasis was not placed on the taker of the thing but on the particular position of the person who was deprived of the property. This approach was also followed in Roman-Dutch law. Fur tum possessionis in South African law can be defined as follows: It is the unlawful and intentional appropriation by the owner or someone else of a movable corporeal thing in commercio, in circumstances in which the possessor of the thing has a valid right of retention of the thing, with the intention of depriving the possessor permanently of control of the thing. Theft in the form of furtum possessionis differs in an important respect from theft in the form of the removal of a thing. In the case of removal the complainant can also be a person acting as a holder, that is someone exercising control of the thing on behalf of the owner. In the case of furtum possessionis the complainant is the person with the right of retention and from whose possession the thing is taken away. The accused either possesses the thing as an owner or as a holder before possession of the thing was transferred to the complainant. Mere possession is not enough. The possession of the complainant has to be accompanied by a right to retention. Furthermore the possession of the thing has to be lawful / Criminal & Procedural Law / LL.M. (Criminal & Procedural Law)

The objective of my thesis was to provide a comprehensive survey on ownership as a legal institute and one of man's important values. It should be presented in the historical context and its development should be drawn up both over the course of several centuries and through various communities of people, whether under a totalitarian regime or free. My thesis consists of 4 major parts. Part 1 is dedicated to Roman law and includes chapters on the subject of ownership, acquisition of property, protection of ownership and limitations of ownership. Part 2 describes the development of ownership in our country. Specifically it analyses the General Civic Code - ABGB, Civic Code - 141/1950 Coll. and Civic Code - 40/1964 Coll. My objective was also to give at least a partial insight into the legal regulations regarding ownership in other states. Given the fact that this is an extensive matter, it appeared to be most effective to do a survey of ownership at the constitutional level in EU countries, namely Spain, Germany, Luxembourg, France, Greece, Portugal, Lithuania and Hungary, see Part 3 hereof. I assumed a more detailed treatment of ownership at the constitutional level would be applied in western countries. However, this hypothesis turned out to be wrong at least in the cases of Spain and Luxembourg....

The focus of this thesis is Firmicus Maternus, his text the Mathesis, and their place in the intellectual culture of the fourth century AD. There are two sections to this thesis. The first part considers the two questions which have dominated the scholarship on the Mathesis and relate to the context of the work: the date of composition and Firmicus' faith at the time. Chapter 1 separates these questions and reconsiders them individually through an analysis of the three characters which appear throughout the text: Firmicus, the emperor, and the addressee Mavortius. The second part of the thesis considers the Mathesis within the intellectual culture of the fourth century. It examines how Firmicus establishes his authority as a didactic astrologer, with an emphasis on Firmicus' use of his sources. Chapter 2 examines which sources are credited. It considers the argument that Manilius is an uncredited source through an analysis of the astrological theory of the Mathesis and the Astronomica. In addition, the astrological theory of Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos is compared to the Mathesis to assess Firmicus' use of his named sources. The methods that Firmicus uses to assert his authority, including his use of sources, are compared to other didactic authors, both astrological or Late Antique in Chapter 3. This chapter examines whether Firmicus' suppression and falsifying of sources is found in other didactic literature. Chapter 4 considers possible reasons for the omission of Manilius' name and also the effect that this has had on intellectual culture and the place of the Mathesis within it.

The South African concept of freedom of testation is one of the most absolute concepts of freedom of testation in westernised legal systems. It is suggested that the South African concept of freedom of testation is a memento of capitalist patriarchy. As the South African legal system practices a nearly absolute concept of freedom of testation, capitalist patriarchy has maintained masculine control of property in South Africa and perpetuated the systems of male dominance prevalent in South Africa. Freedom of testation allows for wealth to pass from one male to another. It also allows entrenched gender roles to continue by excluding women from inheriting. Thus the South African law of testate succession and its central concept of freedom of testation allows for discrimination on the ground of gender. / Jurisprudence / LL.M