Mental Files

Great Christian Jurists in the Low Countries

Edited by Wim Decock

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium

and Janwillem Oosterhuis

Universiteit Maastricht, Netherlands

Description

What impact has Christianity had on law and policies in the Lowlands from the eleventh century through the end of the twentieth century? Taking the gradual ‘secularization’ of European legal culture as a framework, this volume explores the lives and times of twenty legal scholars and professionals to study the historical impact of the Christian faith on legal and political life in the Low Countries. The process whereby Christian belief systems gradually lost their impact on the regulation of secular affairs passed through several stages, not in the least the Protestant Reformation, which led to the separation of the Low Countries in a Protestant North and a Catholic South in the first place. The contributions take up general issues such as the relationship between justice and mercy, Christianity and politics as well as more technical topics of state-church law, criminal law and social policy.

Key Features

• Provides examples of multi-confessional dialogue in historical scholarship, including trans-confessional perspectives on the impact of Catholic and Protestant Christianity on Law and Society in the Low Countries • Offers examples of inter-disciplinary scholarship that crosses the boundaries of academic scholarship and legal practice • Includes both well-known and lesser-known authors who contributed to the development of law and society to provide fresh insights into famous historical figures over a period of almost ten centuries

Contents

Great Christian jurists in the low countries; 1. Alger of Liège; 2. Arnoldus Gheyloven; 3. Boëtius Epo; 4. Leonardus Lessius Toon Van Houdt; 5. Franciscus Zypaeus; 6. Hugo Grotius; 7. Paulus Voet (1619–1667) –A Christian jurist during the Dutch golden age; 8. Ulrik Huber; 9. Zeger-Bernard van Espen; 10. Dionysius van der Keessel (1738–1816). The defiance of a Christian conservative; 11. Pieter Paulus (1753–1796); 12. Guillaume Groen van Prinsterer; 13. Edouard Ducpétiaux –A Christian, but also a jurist?; 14. Charles Périn; 15. Léon de Lantsheere (1862–1912); 16. Paul Scholten; 17. Willem Duynstee; 18. Jules Storme (1887–1955), the Catholic jurist and the growing pains of

Christian democracy in Belgium; 19. Herman Dooyeweerd; 20. Josse Mertens de Wilmars (1912–2002).

Additional Information

Level: Academic researchers, graduate students Series: Law and Christianity

October 2021 228 x 152 mm c.350pp 978-1-108-42984-9 Hardback c. £100.00 / c. US$130.00