Pro Memorie - Volume 24, Issue 1, 2022

Abstract This 2021 interview with emeritus professor Laurens Winkel from the Erasmus University at Rotterdam, shines a light on the life and work of this internationally recognized legal history scholar, born in The Hague in 1949. Professor Winkel talks about his study years, his love for history and philosophy, and his fascination for trains, underlining, modestly, how a life or career path can be the result of many coincidences. H Read More

Abstract This article comments on the iconography of Rubens’ sketch ‘The lawyer and death’ after Hans Holbein’s woodcut. The drawing is an example of a post-medieval dance macabre, conveying the message that all are equal in the face of death. The article discusses other examples of these dances of death, specifically concerning the legal profession. The identification of the main persona as an advocate or lawyer is c Read More

Abstract On November 30 and the first of December 1602 a new body of law was officially promulgated by the Court of Friesland. It was an unique event and also the promulmulgated law, officialy named Statuten, Ordonnantien, ende Costumen van Frieslandt (Statutes, Ordinances and Customs of Friesland), was special. Nowhere else in the Low Countries a similar body of law was ever made. In more than 671 articles, dispersed Read More

Abstract Making archives searchable by digitalisation and applying artificial intelligence to this will not only generate new information, but opens also the door for new questions. On basis of a case study from the Court of Friesland, the importance of this digital unlocking and method is shown: network analysis in three similar cases demonstrates and visualises the dominance of certain sources (allegations) in the network over o Read More

Malicious denunciation to the enemy during the war was introduced into the penal code in Belgium as a new offense against the external security of the State by a decree-law of April 8, 1917 and was punishable from April 13, 1917. The punishment itself of this, in article 121bis of the Belgian penal code determined, crime only happened from the month of November 1918. Although no indications were given for this in the decr Read More