Law and empire : : ideas, practices, actors / / edited by Jeroen Duindam [and three others].

• Superior document: Rulers & elites : comparative studies in governance, volume 3
• TeilnehmendeR: Duindam, Jeroen Frans Jozef, 1962-
• Place / Publishing House: Leiden : : Brill,, 2013.
• Year of Publication: 2013
• Language: English
• Series: Rulers & elites ; v. 3.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (360 p.)
• Notes: "This volume brings together a selection of papers presented at a conference held at the History Institute of Utrecht University in November 2008"--Acknowledgements.

Law and Empire provides a comparative view of legal practices in Asia and Europe, from Antiquity to the eighteenth century. It relates the main principles of legal thinking in Chinese, Islamic, and European contexts to practices of lawmaking and adjudication. In particular, it shows how legal procedure and legal thinking could be used in strikingly different ways. Rulers could use law effectively as an instrument of domination; legal specialists built their identity, livelihood and social status on their knowledge of law; and non-elites exploited the range of legal fora available to them. This volume shows the relevance of legal pluralism and the social relevance of litigation for premodern power structures.

Table of Contents

Law, authority and legitimacy in the Athenian empire / Polly Low -- Roman law from city state to world empire / Jill Harries -- Laws, bureaucrats, and imperial women in China's early empires / Karen Gottschang Turner -- The ruler and law making in the Ottoman Empire / Engin Deniz Akarli -- The early modern Holy Roman Empire of the German nation, (1495-1806) : a multi-layered legal system / Karl Harter -- The contribution of early Islamic rulers to adjudication and legislation : the case of the Mazalim tribunals / Nimrod Hurvitz -- Charlemagne and the government of the Frankish countryside / Carine van Rhijn -- The law factor in Ottoman- Crimean Tatar relations in the early modern period / Natalia Krolikowska -- Qing imperial justice? : the case of Li Shiyao / R. Kent Guy -- Thinking through legal pluralism : 'forum shopping' in the later Roman Empire / Caroline Humfress -- Leges nationum and ethnic personality of law in Charlemagne's empire / Peter C.M. Hoppenbrouwers -- Non-Muslims and Ottoman justice(s?) / Antonis Anastasopoulos -- Royal grace, royal punishment : ceremonial entries and the pardoning of criminals in France, c. 1440-1560 -- Neil murphy -- Divine violence to uphold moral values : the casebook of an Emperor Guan temple in Hunan province in 1851-1852 / Barend J. ter Haar.