Pope Alexander vi, Slavery and Voluntary Subjection: ‘Ineffabilis et Summi Patris’ in Context

2014 ◽  
Vol 65 (4) ◽  
pp. 738-760
Author(s):  
HECTOR AVALOS
Keyword(s):  
Legal Tradition ◽  
Complete Translation ◽  
Pope Alexander Vi

‘Ineffabilis et summi patris’ (1 June 1497), a little-known letter from Alexander VI to Manuel i, king of Portugal (1495–1521), plays an important role in Joel Panzer's The popes and slavery (1996). For Panzer, ‘Ineffabilis’ clarifies the voluntary nature of submission by newly-encountered peoples to Iberian monarchs. A new and complete translation of ‘Ineffabilis’ shows that it is part of a legal tradition wherein voluntary subjection was one mode of enslavement. ‘Ineffabilis’ also reflects Manuel's broader attempt to gain an advantage over Spain in light of Vasco da Gama's impending voyage to India in July 1497.

From the Law of Ransom to the Law of Release

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Will Smiley
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Legal Tradition ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Law ◽  
New System

This chapter charts the “Law of Release,” a new system of rules that replaced the Law of Ransom. These rules were based on treaties signed from 1739 onward, but also on a variety of lesser agreements and unwritten understandings and the Islamic legal tradition. They were renewed frequently, and structured captivity as late as the 1850s. This chapter will explore the basic structures of the Law of Release—how captives were found, released, and sent home, and how slaveowners were convinced, coerced, or compensated to cooperate. I argue that while release was initially limited to Istanbul, and to the most visible captives, it extended both into elite households, and outward along the Ottoman corridors of power. This process tested the limits of the Ottoman state, forcing the state to cooperate with Russian officials for the benefit of both. They did so in the face of resistance from captors.

Property in Land in Roman Provinces

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Georgy Kantor
Keyword(s):  
Local Property ◽  
Legal Tradition ◽  
Technical Literature ◽  
Historical Scholarship ◽  
Property Relations ◽  
Roman Provinces ◽  
Legal Regimes ◽  
The Right ◽  
Property Regimes

Roman concept of dominium has been fundamental in the formation of concepts of ownership in European legal tradition. It is, however, often considered outside the context of Roman imperial rule and of the multiplicity of legal regimes governing property relations in Roman provinces outside Italy. This chapter starts from the classic passage in the Institutes of Gaius, claiming that the right of dominium did not exist in provincial land, where it belonged to the Roman state. Gaius’ statement is often dismissed in modern historical scholarship as a ‘conveyancer’s fantasy’ (A.H.M. Jones). It is argued here that, on the contrary, this passage and other similar statements in Roman juristic literature and technical literature on land-measurement, show an important facet of Roman ideas of ownership as a socially contingent right, dependent on civic status of the owner, status of the territory within the empire, and Roman recognition of local property regimes.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda L. Tyler
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
War On Terror ◽  
Japanese Americans ◽  
Legal Tradition ◽  
World War ◽  
Modern Conception ◽  
The World ◽  
Enemy Combatant

The Introduction begins by exploring modern examples sanctioning the concept of the citizen enemy combatant, such as the War on Terror cases of José Padilla and Yaser Hamdi. It then suggests that the roots of this concept may be found in the World War II detention of Japanese Americans, including over 70,000 U.S. citizens. The Introduction continues by arguing that this modern conception of the citizen enemy combatant is impossible to reconcile with the historic understanding of the Suspension Clause and the habeas privilege that trace their origins to English legal tradition, an understanding that remained consistent well through Reconstruction. The Introduction concludes with an overview of the book.

The Feudal Origins of the Western Legal Tradition

ORDO ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 (70) ◽  
pp. 3-20
Author(s):  
Cameron Harwick ◽  
Hilton Root
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Political Strategy ◽  
Legal Tradition ◽  
Legal Development ◽  
Limited Government ◽  
Legal Traditions

AbstractThis paper draws a distinction between ‘communitarian’ and ‘rationalist’ legal orders on the basis of the implied political strategy. We argue that the West’s solution to the paradox of governance – that a government strong enough to protect rights cannot itself be restrained from violating those rights – originates in certain aspects of the feudal contract, a confluence of aspects of communitarian Germanic law, which enshrined a contractual notion of political authority, and rationalistic Roman law, which supported large-scale political organization. We trace the tradition of strong but limited government to the conflict between factions with an interest in these legal traditions – nobles and the crown, respectively – and draw limited conclusions for legal development in non-Western contexts.

Denaturalizing the Monroe Doctrine: The rise of Latin American legal anti-imperialism in the face of the modern US and hemispheric redefinition of the Monroe Doctrine

2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 541-555
Author(s):  
Juan Pablo Scarfi
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Elastic Behaviour ◽  
Legal Tradition ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Monroe Doctrine ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Face ◽  
History Of ◽  
Pan Americanism

AbstractThe Monroe Doctrine was originally formulated as a US foreign policy principle, but in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries it began to be redefined in relation to both the hemispheric policy of Pan-Americanism and the interventionist policies of the US in Central America and the Caribbean. Although historians and social scientists have devoted a great deal of attention to Latin American anti-imperialist ideologies, there was a distinct legal tradition within the broader Latin American anti-imperialist traditions especially concerned with the nature and application of the Monroe Doctrine, which has been overlooked by international law scholars and the scholarship focusing on Latin America. In recent years, a new revisionist body of research has emerged exploring the complicity between the history of modern international law and imperialism, as well as Third World perspectives on international law, but this scholarship has begun only recently to explore legal anti-imperialist contributions and their legacy. The purpose of this article is to trace the rise of this Latin American anti-imperialist legal tradition, assessing its legal critique of the Monroe Doctrine and its implications for current debates about US exceptionalism and elastic behaviour in international law and organizations, especially since 2001.

scholarly journals Qurʾān and Sunna or the Madhhabs?: A Salafi Polemic Against Islamic Legal Tradition

2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 211-253
Author(s):  
Emad Hamdeh
Keyword(s):  
Critical Role ◽  
Social Climate ◽  
Religious Movement ◽  
Legal Tradition ◽  
Unique Type ◽  
Absolute Truth ◽  
Rhetorical Strategy ◽  
The Absolute ◽  
Annotated Translation ◽  
Shed Light

The Albanian scholar Muḥammad Nāṣir al-Dīn al-Albānī (d. 1999) established a unique type of Salafism, a movement whose adherents follow a puritanical model of Muslim creed, exegesis, and conduct that is critical of madhhab Traditionalism. In this article I present an annotated translation of an audio lecture in which Albānī attempted to defend Salafism against its anti-madhhab image. I shed light on the religious and social climate that played a critical role in triggering Albānī’s disdain for Traditionalism and led him to discredit madhhab Traditionalist fiqh and replace it with his own interpretation of the jurisprudential requirements of Islamic scripture. Among the arguments I make is that Albānī’s claim to follow only the Qurʾān and Sunna is a rhetorical strategy designed to present Salafism as the absolute truth and distinguish it from being categorized as another madhhab or religious movement.


Why Diamonds Really are a Girl's Best Friend: Another American Narrative

Daedalus ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 141 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-100
Author(s):  
Linda K. Kerber
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Cultural Practice ◽  
Legal Tradition ◽  
Domestic Relations ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
American Law ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Republic ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S

The old law of domestic relations and the system known as coverture have shaped marriage practices in the United States and have limited women's membership in the constitutional community. This system of law predates the Revolution, but it lingers in U.S. legal tradition even today. After describing coverture and the old law of domestic relations, this essay considers how the received narrative of women's place in U.S. history often obscures the story of women's and men's efforts to overthrow this oppressive regime, and also the story of the continuing efforts of men and some women to stabilize and protect it. The essay also questions the paradoxes built into American law: for example, how do we reconcile the strictures of coverture with the founders' care in defining rights-holders as “persons” rather than “men”? Citing a number of court cases from the early days of the republic to the present, the essay describes the 1960s and 1970s shift in legal interpretation of women's rights and obligations. However, recent developments – in abortion laws, for example – invite inquiry as to how full the change is that we have accomplished. The history of coverture and the way it affects legal, political, and cultural practice today is another American narrative that needs to be better understood.

General

2017 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
pp. 220-238
Author(s):  
Ivana Petrovic ◽  
Andrej Petrovic
Keyword(s):  
The Sun ◽  
Creation Myths ◽  
The Third ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Astronomical Instruments ◽  
Music Of The Spheres ◽  
Desert Island ◽  
Complete Translation

If you still haven't chosen a book to take with to the desert island, I have a suggestion: L'encyclopédie du ciel. At 1,202 pages, it will keep you occupied day and night: what you read as text by day will help you read by night in the sky. This wonderful and extremely useful book is as difficult to classify as it is to put down. Essentially, it is a compendium of Greco-Roman discourse on the stars and planets, divided into three parts. The first (‘Les images: histoire et mythologie: voir et raconter’) is about the constellations and the planets. It opens with a catalogue in which each constellation is illustrated, explained, and accompanied with appropriate quotations from Eratosthenes’ Catasterismoi and Hyginus’ Astronomica. There follow essays about the names of the constellations, on the Sun, Moon, and the planets, and one on Greek and Roman creation myths. All are accompanied by long passages of appropriate Greek and Latin texts in translation. The second part of the book (‘Les lois: l'astronomie: observer et calculer’) is about the ancient attempts to make sense of and explain the stars and planets as a system, about calendars, and about ancient astronomical instruments and objects. This part of the book also contains a complete translation of Hipparchus’ Commentary on the Phaenomena of Eudoxus and Aratus. It closes with an account of Greek star catalogues. The third part of the book is concerned with various attempts to interpret the celestial phenomena (‘Les messages: signes et influence: interpréter et prédire’). It includes, but is not restricted to, astrology; philosophical ideas are also discussed, such as astral apotheosis, the ascent of the soul through the sky, and the music of the spheres. There is a dictionary of astronomical and astrological terms and a dictionary of ancient astronomers and authors dealing with astronomy. The book closes with parallel star catalogues of Eratosthenes, Hipparchus, and Ptolemy.

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