Books by Caroline Humfress
https://www.cambridge.org/gb/universitypress/subjects/classical-studies/ancient-history/cambridge-comparative-history-ancient-law?format=HB, 2024
The Cambridge Comparative History of Ancient Law is the first of its kind in the field of compara... more The Cambridge Comparative History of Ancient Law is the first of its kind in the field of comparative ancient legal history. Written collaboratively by a dedicated team of international experts, each chapter offers a new framing and understanding of key legal concepts, practices and historical contexts across five major legal traditions of the ancient world. Stretching chronologically across more than three and a half millennia, from the earliest, very fragmentary, proto-cuneiform tablets (3200–3000 BCE) to the Tang Code of 652 CE, the volume challenges earlier comparative histories of ancient law / societies, at the same time as opening up new areas for future scholarship across a wealth of surviving ancient Near Eastern, Indian, Chinese, Greek and Roman primary source evidence. Topics covered include 'law as text', legal science, inter-polity relations, law and the state, law and religion, legal procedure, personal status and the family, crime, property and contract.
Draft abstract and contents page for monograph with Oxford University Press, under contract in th... more Draft abstract and contents page for monograph with Oxford University Press, under contract in the series 'Oxford Studies in Roman Society and Law' (series editors: Paul du Plessis and Tom McGinn).
Duindam, J., Harries, J., Humfress, C. and Hurvitz, N., Law and Empire: Ideas, Practices, Actors (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2013)
2010 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title
RUSA 2011 Outstanding Reference Sources Award Winner
... more 2010 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title
RUSA 2011 Outstanding Reference Sources Award Winner
In discussing a topic, political science lecturers and course textbooks often toss out the name of a theorist or make a sideways reference to a particular theory and move on, as if assuming their student audience possesses the necessary background to appreciate and integrate the reference. However, academic librarians can tell you this is usually far from the case. Students often approach them seeking a source to provide a quick overview of a particular theory or theorist with just the basics: the who, what, where, how, and why. And librarians often find it difficult to guide these students to a quick, one-stop source.
SAGE Reference presents the three-volume Encyclopedia of Political Theory, available in both print and electronic formats.
This work serves as a reference source for anyone interested in the roots of contemporary political theory. Drawing together a team of international scholars, it examines the global landscape of all the key theories and the theorists behind them, presenting them in the context needed to understand their strengths and weaknesses. In addition to interpretations of long-established theories, it also offers essays on cutting-edge research as one might find in a handbook. And, like an unabridged dictionary, it provides concise, to-the-point definitions of key concepts, ideas, schools, and figures.
This monograph explores Late Roman law - approached from the perspective of legal practice - in t... more This monograph explores Late Roman law - approached from the perspective of legal practice - in the context of the rise of Institutional Christianity and the formation of Christian Orthodoxy (c .AD 200-600). Divided into three parts, the first demonstrates that skills in forensic (legal) rhetoric remained fundamental to the practice of law in Late Antique courts and in other legal contexts. Roman law and in particular Imperial legislation existed within a broader rhetorical framework and its interpretation and application was often governed by rhetorical techniques of argument. Part II argues that, from at least the early fourth century, leading bishops, ecclesiastics and Christian polemicists participated in this vibrant Late Antique culture of forensic argument, with far-reaching effects on theological debate, the development of ecclesiastical authority and the elaboration of early ‘Canon law’. One of the most innovative aspects of late Roman law was the creation and application of new legal categories used in the prosecution of ‘heretics’ and this development is explored in Part III of the monograph. Leading Christian polemicists not only used techniques of forensic argument learnt in the late Roman rhetorical schools to help position the Church within the structure of Empire, they also used those techniques in cases involving accusations against ‘heretics’ - thus defining and developing the concept of Christian orthodoxy itself.
Chapters / articles by Caroline Humfress
Sam Zeitlin and Felix Waldmann, eds., Constitutionalism and Political Thought [Proceedings of the British Academy (PBA) volume [forthcoming], 2025
A key paradigm within modern (liberal, secular) political thought differentiates ‘government’ and... more A key paradigm within modern (liberal, secular) political thought differentiates ‘government’ and ‘the state’ from ‘civil society’, identifying ‘constitutionality’ and ‘constitutional law’ with the former rather than the latter. Ancient constitutionalism, however, should be understood as a much broader societal phenomenon than modern studies of ancient political thought and practice tend to suggest. This chapter argues that a distinctive ancient constitutional imaginary can be identified across a wide spectrum of ancient political thought and practice, including the vast and complex evidence for ancient (‘private’, ‘voluntary’) associations. This fact, in turn, opens the way for a critical re-assessment of the constitutionality of associative phenomena throughout the history of Western political and constitutional thought. New, twenty first-century, branches of scholarship on modern constitutional thought – for example the fields of ‘societal constitutionalism’ and ‘global constitutionalism’ - have attributed constitutional qualities to (post-)modern civil society associations and groups. In what ways might these twenty-first-century recognitions of civil society constitutionalism contribute to a re-evaluation of the constitutionality of ancient associations? And what can a study of ancient ‘associational constitutionalism’ offer twenty first-century political and constitutional thought?
Law and History Review, Special Edition "Rethinking Legal Pluralism" edited by Mark Letteney and Jessica Marglin, 2024
This article interrogates the concept of legal pluralism, as it currently tends to function withi... more This article interrogates the concept of legal pluralism, as it currently tends to function within contemporary legal and historical scholarship. It argues that the concept of legal pluralism cannot ‘liberate’ positivist analytical legal theory from monist (municipal, state-centric etc.) straight-jackets. Rather the concept of legal pluralism itself presumes the primacy of centralized state-issued law - at the same time as masking that primacy within a pluralist discourse. The concept of legal pluralism should be properly understood – and analyzed – as part of the mythology of modern law, not as an alternative to it. Parts I and II of the article develop this argument via a critical tour of legal-pluralist historiography, focused on 1986 to the present-day. Part III then moves on to explore what is at stake for the pre-modern historian when they apply (modern) concept(s) of legal pluralism to try to explain the multiplicity of legal orders that they invariably encounter in their own source material.
Keywords: legal pluralism; legal centralism; modern law’s mythologies; sociolegal positivism; Farroxmard i Wahrāmān; Junillus Africanus.
POLITICAL THOUGHT, TIME, AND HISTORY, ed. John Roberston (CUP), 2023
Caroline Humfress explores the distinctive relationship between sacred (Christian) temporality an... more Caroline Humfress explores the distinctive relationship between sacred (Christian) temporality and (Western) ‘hermeneutics of the state’, through a focus upon the founding texts of the Civilian legal tradition: the sixth-century CE Digest, Code and Institutes. Part 1 analyses the Emperor Justinian’s claim that these law-books were to be ‘valid for all eternity’ through a series of close textual readings of the same law-books’ prefatory constitutions. Part 2 contextualises Justinian’s lawyerly invocation of ‘eternity’ within contemporary Eastern Christological disputes, including a set of theological debates, orchestrated by Justinian himself, that took place at the same time (and location) as his law-books were being compiled. Part 3 concludes by arguing that the ‘timeless’, rational, universal, authority of the Civilian Legal tradition – as explored in the chapter by Ryan – was in fact underpinned by a specific Eastern (‘Byzantine’) sacred temporality.
Keywords: Corpus Iuris Civilis; Civilian legal tradition; Justinian; eternity; sacred time; incarnation
Anders, W. and Wei, J., eds., The Cambridge History of Medieval Canon Law Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2022
The Early Church Caroline Humfress According to a tradition recorded by the second-century Christ... more The Early Church Caroline Humfress According to a tradition recorded by the second-century Christian writer Hegesippus, the grandsons of Jude, Jesus' brother, were denounced to the Roman emperor Domitian (81-96) because they, like Jesus himself, were descendants of King David. Fearing a restoration of David's kingdom, Domitian summoned Jesus' relatives to his imperial court and interrogated them directly:
[OPEN ACCESS] Entangled Legalities Beyond the State, ed. Nico Krisch, 2021
This chapter explores the concept of ‘entangled legalities’ in the context of pre-modern and (pos... more This chapter explores the concept of ‘entangled legalities’ in the context of pre-modern and (post-)modern localised legal orders: regional, imperial, national, international, transnational and postnational. Part 1 explores the juridification of the international legal sphere; it contrasts private international law approaches with postnational law approaches, exploring the ways in which the recent postnational shift from hierarchical to heterarchical governance structures in fact leads us back to fundamental questions first posed by (Classical) Roman law. Part 2 focuses on the striking predominance of ‘strong’ legal norms in current analyses of transnational and postnational legal entanglements. Part 3, in contrast, argues for a shift in scholarly emphasis away from ‘strong’ legal norms towards a more explicit focus on the importance of strategic legal argumentation in the construction of localised legalities, via a case study of the multiple juris(dictional)-generative practices revealed in the record of a specific, sixth-century, Roman (Byzantine) dispute settlement: P. Petra IV.39.
Peter Bang, Christopher Bayly, and Walter Scheidel, eds., The Oxford World History of Empire (Oxford UP) , 2021
The chapter explores the "logic of empire" in relation to law, bureaucracy and the practice of go... more The chapter explores the "logic of empire" in relation to law, bureaucracy and the practice of government, from the Ancient world to the present. Beginning with the complex example of Haile Selassie I and the Ethiopian Empire, the chapter analyses the many universalisms of law and empire, before moving on to a survey of different repertories of imperial rule. The chapter then examines the numerous ways in which empires put law 'to work', facilitating the development of multiple, normative orders and institutions far beyond the jurisdiction of their own imperial officials. The final section of the chapter briefly introduces (post)colonial legal scholarship and the concept of 'legalism from below', with a specific focus on recent archival research in courtroom records.
“Natural Law and Casuistic Reasoning in Roman Jurisprudence” in Peter Adamson and Christoff Rapp, eds., State and Nature: Essays on Ancient Political Philosophy (Berlin: De Gruyter), 2021
The Roman jurists, 'calculating with concepts,' did not need any natural law." (Christoph Kletzer... more The Roman jurists, 'calculating with concepts,' did not need any natural law." (Christoph Kletzer). Focusing on classical juristic material, this essay argues that natural law was in fact one concept, amongst others, that Roman jurists calculated with. There is no evidence for Roman juristic treatises dedicated to natural law, yet as Levy noted in 1949: "Hundreds of texts are concerned with ius naturale, naturalis ratio, rerum natura and other phrases related to natura or naturalis. It is impossible to find a common denominator." The essay divides into two parts: first, it surveys a series of arguments drawn from those hundreds of juristic texts that relate to natural reason and natural law(s). Second, it analyses the Roman juristic method of "calculating with concepts." The argument throughout is that the common denominator which eluded Levy is the Roman jurists own, highly particular, type of case-methodology.
The Church and the Law. Studies in Church History Volume 56 eds., Rosamond McKitterick, Charlotte Methuen and Andrew Spicer , 2020
In contrast with contemporary heresiological discourse, the Codex Theodosianus - a Roman imperial... more In contrast with contemporary heresiological discourse, the Codex Theodosianus - a Roman imperial lawcode promulgated in 438CE - makes no systematic gendered references to heretics or heresy. According to late Roman legislative rhetoric, heretics are demented, polluted and infected with pestilence - but they are not seductive temptresses, vulgar 'women', or weak-minded whores. This paper explores the gap between the precisely-marked terrain of Christian heresiologists and (Christian) legislators. Part I, 'Heresy becomes a woman', gives a brief overview of early Christian heresiology. Part II explores late Roman legislation and the construction of the heretic as a 'legal subject' in the Codex Theodosianus. Part III turns to the celebrated account, crafted by Pope Leo I of anti-manichaean trials at Rome (443/444 CE), arguing that they should be understood as part of a much broader, developing, regime of ecclesial power - rather than as concrete applications of existing imperial anti-heresy laws.
"A New Legal Cosmos" in Marios Costambeys and Peter Linehan, eds., The Medieval World. Second edition (London: Routledge), 653 - 673, 2018
Ronning, O-A, Sigh, H.M. and Vogt, H., eds., Donations, Strategies and Relations in the Latin West and Nordic Countries (Routledge)., 2017
In Classical and Postclassical Roman law, property could be left by will to (almost) anyone. Roma... more In Classical and Postclassical Roman law, property could be left by will to (almost) anyone. Roman testate succession thus allowed for inheritances to pass outside the family, thereby creating a highly complicated set of legal rules and remedies. This Chapter focuses on late Roman gift-giving and inheritance strategies, with particular reference to the institutional Christian church (third to sixth centuries AD). It argues that ecclesiastics and others acting on behalf of Late Antique Christian churches did not so much disrupt traditional Roman inheritance strategies, as take advantage of them.
Keywords: Roman law, intestate succession, testate succession, fideicommissa, legacies, Christianity, practice, Theodosian Code, Justinianic Code, Justinianic Novels, ecclesiastical property, monks.
COLLeGIUM. Studies Across Disciplines in the Humanities and Social Sciences, volume edited by Kahlos, M., 'Emperors and the Divine – Rome and Beyond', 2016
In the celebrated words of the Severan jurist Ulpian – echoed three hundred years later in the op... more In the celebrated words of the Severan jurist Ulpian – echoed three hundred years later in the opening passages of Justinian’s Institutes –knowledge of the law entails knowledge of matters both human and divine. This essay explores how relations between the human and divine were structured and ordered in the Imperial codex of Theodosius II (438AD). Deliberately side stepping vexed categories such as ‘Christian', 'pagan', 'heresiological' etc., the essay self-consciously frames the question as one of 'knowledge-ordering' in order to develop a broader framework concerning relations between emperors and the divine. How was knowledge about the divine textualised in Book XVI of the Codex Theodosianus and with what implications for a late Roman imperial 'ordering of knowledge'?
![Research paper thumbnail of "Telling Stories About Law: Concepts, Rules and Rhetoric in [Roman] Legal Discourse"](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/67427302/thumbnails/1.jpg)
Dresch, P. and Scheele, J., Legalism. Rules and Categories (Oxford University Press, 2015), 2015
Legalism is at least as much about institutionalized cultures of argument, as it is about ‘rule f... more Legalism is at least as much about institutionalized cultures of argument, as it is about ‘rule following’. Developing the idea of 'Legalism after Anthropology' as a framework, the essay first explores the conceptual make-up of legalism itself, through an analysis of the nineteenth-century German legal theorist Rudolph von Jhering’s attack on Begriffsjurisprudenz (the ‘jurisprudence of concepts’) - before turning to the place of legal rules and concepts within (the later) Jhering’s own sociological jurisprudence. The following section, ‘Ethnography and The Concept of Law’, analyses the temporality, particularity, and constructed-ness of how ‘we’ see legal rules and concepts, taking H.L.A Hart’s analytical jurisprudence as our focus. The final two sections: 'Law Comes to Life in Institutions' and 'Legalism and Forensic Rhetoric: Quintilian's Institutio Oratoria' both concentrate on the technicalities of law in a broader sense. How, exactly, do legal rules and concepts ‘come to life' within institutionalized contexts and traditions? Rather than focusing on legal rules, concepts, and categories primarily in relation to doctrinal legal systems, we need to think more about the ethnology of legal rhetoric: about the roles that legal rules concepts, and categories play within different cultures of legal reasoning and argument.
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Books by Caroline Humfress
RUSA 2011 Outstanding Reference Sources Award Winner
In discussing a topic, political science lecturers and course textbooks often toss out the name of a theorist or make a sideways reference to a particular theory and move on, as if assuming their student audience possesses the necessary background to appreciate and integrate the reference. However, academic librarians can tell you this is usually far from the case. Students often approach them seeking a source to provide a quick overview of a particular theory or theorist with just the basics: the who, what, where, how, and why. And librarians often find it difficult to guide these students to a quick, one-stop source.
SAGE Reference presents the three-volume Encyclopedia of Political Theory, available in both print and electronic formats.
This work serves as a reference source for anyone interested in the roots of contemporary political theory. Drawing together a team of international scholars, it examines the global landscape of all the key theories and the theorists behind them, presenting them in the context needed to understand their strengths and weaknesses. In addition to interpretations of long-established theories, it also offers essays on cutting-edge research as one might find in a handbook. And, like an unabridged dictionary, it provides concise, to-the-point definitions of key concepts, ideas, schools, and figures.
Chapters / articles by Caroline Humfress
Keywords: legal pluralism; legal centralism; modern law’s mythologies; sociolegal positivism; Farroxmard i Wahrāmān; Junillus Africanus.
Keywords: Corpus Iuris Civilis; Civilian legal tradition; Justinian; eternity; sacred time; incarnation
Keywords: Roman law, intestate succession, testate succession, fideicommissa, legacies, Christianity, practice, Theodosian Code, Justinianic Code, Justinianic Novels, ecclesiastical property, monks.
RUSA 2011 Outstanding Reference Sources Award Winner
In discussing a topic, political science lecturers and course textbooks often toss out the name of a theorist or make a sideways reference to a particular theory and move on, as if assuming their student audience possesses the necessary background to appreciate and integrate the reference. However, academic librarians can tell you this is usually far from the case. Students often approach them seeking a source to provide a quick overview of a particular theory or theorist with just the basics: the who, what, where, how, and why. And librarians often find it difficult to guide these students to a quick, one-stop source.
SAGE Reference presents the three-volume Encyclopedia of Political Theory, available in both print and electronic formats.
This work serves as a reference source for anyone interested in the roots of contemporary political theory. Drawing together a team of international scholars, it examines the global landscape of all the key theories and the theorists behind them, presenting them in the context needed to understand their strengths and weaknesses. In addition to interpretations of long-established theories, it also offers essays on cutting-edge research as one might find in a handbook. And, like an unabridged dictionary, it provides concise, to-the-point definitions of key concepts, ideas, schools, and figures.
Keywords: legal pluralism; legal centralism; modern law’s mythologies; sociolegal positivism; Farroxmard i Wahrāmān; Junillus Africanus.
Keywords: Corpus Iuris Civilis; Civilian legal tradition; Justinian; eternity; sacred time; incarnation
Keywords: Roman law, intestate succession, testate succession, fideicommissa, legacies, Christianity, practice, Theodosian Code, Justinianic Code, Justinianic Novels, ecclesiastical property, monks.