Irreducible ambiguity? The line between custom and statute in the law-making of thirteenth-century Poland.

A resurging subject today is medieval customary law and its boundary with statute. Regarding Poland, the inquiry is complicated by a historiographical consensus that here the law essentially was customary, supplemented by statute only in the later fourteenth century. This certainty has reduced legal...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Publicado en:Historical Research Vol. 96; no. 274; pp. 427 - 446
Autor principal: Górecki, Piotr
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: Oxford University Press / USA Nov2023
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Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
Descripción
Sumario:A resurging subject today is medieval customary law and its boundary with statute. Regarding Poland, the inquiry is complicated by a historiographical consensus that here the law essentially was customary, supplemented by statute only in the later fourteenth century. This certainty has reduced legal reality to unwarranted uniformity. In response, I survey the terminology related to custom and statute, examine one document bridging that terminology and an enactment resembling a statute, and place that enactment in a long earlier legacy of written rule-making. This is not a sharp transition from custom to statute, but an evolving sequence of written expression.