Pro Memorie - Volume 22, Issue 2, 2020

Summary

From the fourteenth till the seventeenth centuries, European societies have been confronted with regular outbreaks of pestilence.

In these times of crisis, jurists have had to respond to a variety of new and often unexpected legal questions. In their learned consilia, they developed creative reasonings based on the Justinianic sources and proposed solutions, also taking into account the advice by their medical and theological colleagues. In the early sixteenth century, the juridical response to pestilence-related cases was summarized in a few treatises, e.g. by Gianfrancesco Sannazzari della Ripa (1522) and by Girolamo Previdelli (1524). This contribution presents the main findings of these treatises. It offers a summary of the measures that have been proposed to prevent outbreaks and to cure the ill, of the ways of dealing with the socio-economic consequences of an epidemic, and of the possible relaxations of formal legal requirements regarding contracts, last wills and civil procedure. Based on a first exploratory research, this contribution adds references to Netherlandish legal literature, especially to some learned consilia.

Summary

In times of past crises, the term world law served both as rhetorical tool (to give people hope), and as key term in academic and political blueprints for a post-crisis world order. This article describes how world law was used in Dutch (wereldrecht), German (Weltrecht) and French (droit mondial) popular, political and academic debates. What did those terms mean in the past? And what is their actual and potential relevance in contemporary discussions? How can world law promote global solidarity in the present time? The article ends with some general reflections on the potential value of the world law tradition(s) in today’s debate on how to shape the international legal order in the (post)corona era.

Summary

This article examines the role of medical expertise in the forensic investigation of infanticide in early modern Flanders. Drawing on a collection of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century post-mortem reports, conserved in the archives of three Flemish criminal courts (the Raad van Vlaanderen, the bench of aldermen of Ghent, and the feudal court of the Land van Waas), this study explains how medical practitioners attempted to establish whether or not a dead infant had in fact been born alive, and how they eventually decided that a live newborn had met a violent end. Furthermore, it also discusses the impact of medical observations on the sentences pronounced against mothers who were suspected of having killed their infants. In general, medico-legal considerations had a mitigating effect on the prosecution of infanticide by providing early modern judges with a wide array of extenuating circumstances. Nevertheless, the incriminating potential of medical evidence was seriously hampered by traditional evidentiary standards that considered the accused’s confession a necessary prerequisite for pronouncing the death penalty.

Summary

Defending the King’s rights and affirming the sovereign authority was the important part of the activity of Ladislas de Baralle.

He worked tirelessly to manage the administration of the new territories of the French Crown and ensured their conservation. It intervened judicially and politically thanks to his conclusions given in trials affecting kingdom’s land and revenues but also by relaying the injunctions sent by the monarch. He definitely ensured respect for the authority of the King in the Northern provinces. Through his conclusions, he participated in Louis XIV’s alignment policy by transmitting and requesting the application of royal measures. Baralle also preserved the superiority of royal justice: the analysis of the archives carried out that the general-procurator fought against the claims of ecclesiastical and seigniorial courts against the royal authority. As the king’s man, the procurator-general appeared as a guide for the Flanders’ Parlement which was the symbol of royal sovereignty. Consequently, his role was quite different from that of his counterparts since he regularly asked the councillors to impose the authority of the court within the province.

Summary

This article compares the litigation of the Feudal Court of Brabant and the Council of Brabant between the early fifteenth and the end of the eightteenth century.

After a quantitative assessment of the volume of litigation of both institutions, it is argued that from the seventeenth century onwards, many feudal cases were increasingly treated by the Council of Brabant, and no longer by the Feudal Court. Several contemporary observers argued that the quality of the Feudal Court left something to be desired. The driving force of the growing role of the Council of Brabant seems to be the preference of the users of the courts for a more professional justice.

Summary

This article is a biographical portrait of Anna Maria Louiza Lange, who acted as the first female judge in the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Lange studied and graduated in Leiden, after which she worked as a magistrate for many years in various courts in the Dutch EastIndies. In 1921 Lange substituted for a male judge and acted as a full member of the court in Padang, on the West Coast of Sumatra. This led to a significant court case (�the Padang Affair�), in which the Supreme Court of the Dutch East-Indies ruled that � given the changing needs and insights � �it should be assumed that women as such are not excluded from the judiciary�. Lange must have been an excellent magistrate. In 1931, she was even awarded a knighthood in the Order of Orange-Nassau.