Skip to content
Enrollment of students into the german nation
University of Bologna (Bildquelle: wikicommons)
The law taught at European universities since the Middle Ages drew on two sources (ius utrumque): (1) (ancient) Roman law, which had been reinvented and was now being studied in a scholarly manner, i.e., glossed and commented on (civil law), and (2) canon law, which was established by the popes as ius novum from the 13th century onwards and which was also glossed and commented on (canon law).
For law professors and professional lawyers alike, this "learned law" became their legal DNA. Not least because of its Latin technical language, it became possible to communicate about legal issues across Europe. Professors, students, and legal practitioners graduating from universities were just as mobile as their manuscripts and academic texts, which can now be studied in major research libraries in Munich, Paris, and Rome, among other places, as well as in cathedral and university libraries throughout Europe. With the advent of printing, the classic legal texts were reprinted and new texts were added, so that ius commune stayed a common, because universally known, law until the beginning of the 17th century.
With the increase of new legislation in cities, principalities, and kingdoms, the learned law progressively became a purely academic discipline, but remained a reference system for jurisprudence until the age of codification. As common law, ius commune continued to be a subsidiary source of law well until the 18th century.
The Research Center for Common Law in Theory and Practice, headed by Prof. Dr. Susanne Lepsius, maintains a research infrastructure that includes a large number of the most important legal manuscripts in digital form and, in some cases, on microfilm (see list (PDF, 1,524 KB)). In addition, scholars' bequests (below III.) and collections of materials for the cataloguing of pre-Gregorian collections of canones (below II.) and the oldest manuscripts dating back to the 11th century are available for use. The research center offers numerous research tools for locating medieval legal manuscripts including databases and catalogues. Through its own research, edition projects (below IV.), and collaborations, the research center makes a key contribution to the preservation and cataloguing of medieval manuscript sources from the beginnings of European jurisprudence as well as to the sources of canon law.
The center continues the work of the Stephan Kuttner Institute of Medieval Canon Law, which Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Peter Landau relocated from Berkeley to Munich, where he served as its president from 1991 to 2013. Since then, the institute's reference library, special collection of offprints, and microfilms have been transferred to the USA and are now housed at Yale University. Details about the materials currently available in Munich and accessible to the academic public, as well as useful related websites, can be found on the following pages.
The Chair of Prof. Lepsius provides access to additional special collections that complement the materials described below. Visitors can also use the holding of printed Canon and Roman law in the Leopold-Wenger-Institute of Legal History in Munich.
Last but not least, the research center aims to provide a forum for the exchange of current research projects in the form of lectures and both analog and digital formats. It cooperates closely with the Institute of Medieval Canon Law, currently headed by Prof. Dr. Anders Winroth at the University of Oslo.
The research center's website is currently under construction and will be updated with additional materials and information as they become available.
For further information, research inquiries, and if you are interested in a research stay, please contact
Prof. Dr. Susanne Lepsius, M.A. (University of Chicago).
Head
Prof. Dr. jur. Susanne Lepsius, M.A. (Chicago)
Types of holdings
- List (PDF, 1,524 KB) of manuscripts available in Munich as digital copies or microfilms (full texts can only be viewed on request, usually on site in Munich)
- List of manuscripts available in Munich as photostats at the chair of Professor Lepsius (focus on canon law)
- In the folio room of the Leopold-Wenger-Institute of Legal History, Dept. B, the central works of learned law are available in print.
<Search strategy: Enter "Fol" in the "Signatur" field in the UB-OPAC and search for author/work.> - Digitized manuscripts are available through the Bavarian State Library, though not with a particular focus on legal manuscripts.
<Search strategy: Search query (restrict to metadata if necessary) via the following OPAC link ( e.g. "Hostiensis"), select "+" in the next screen with results as a filter for media type Manuscript, then only digitized manuscripts will be displayed.> - Microfilms of medieval legal manuscripts at the Max Planck Institute for Legal History & Legal Theory, collection focus: civil law (Roman law in the Middle Ages), Baldus de Ubaldis, and the late Middle Ages.
<Search strategy: Search query via the following OPAC link, enter library plus "Manuscript in secondary form (microfilm)"; microfilms can only be viewed on site in Frankfurt.> - Digitized manuscripts of the ius commune in Milan (Biblioteca europea di informazione e cultura) are available here.
- Digitized legal manuscripts of the Collegio di Spagna, Bologna (focus: civil law), are available here.
<Caveat: the linked website is in http format and is therefore considered less secure than an https page.> - Digitized manuscripts from the holdings of the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, but without particular focus on legal manuscripts, are available here.
- Special collections are also available through the chair of the research center's director, Prof. Lepsius, including incunabula of the ius commune (as microfiches), editions of the Italian statutes of medieval city-states, and printed works of scholarly law (in retro copies).
- Kuttner index cards (available on site and listed separately) on the following special topics:
- Initia of Decretum Gratiani, of papal decretals, and of church councils
- Medieval canonical manuscripts and their descriptions
- Maassen card index
- Bibliography of manuscript sources on canon law, on various aspects of medieval history and on universities
- Fransen card index (available for viewing on site)
- Walter Holtzmann card index (PDF, 934 KB) (available on site): Initials of papal decrees with references to the corresponding handwritten tradition and existing editions and collections (originally compiled by Dr. Jörg Müller, Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. P. Landau †).
<Caveat: Currently, the links in the overview document to the respective index card are currently non-functional. This is being adressed. The links are expected to be working by the end of October 2025.> - Fowler-Magerl card index (available on site) on early collections of canones.
<Now revised and available as a searchable database: Summerlin/Rolker/Radl, Clavis canonum> - Tools for locating relevant legislative and canonical manuscripts (see also the holdings in Munich listed above under I.)
- Vatican project (collaboration with Prof. Dr. Dolezalek): Aimed at providing access to the vaste collection of legal manuscripts on jurisprudence and canon law in the Vatican Library. Documents will be made available in PDF format, and a database query function is planned for the near future.
- The authors and texts of ius commune, mainly up to 1500, in European and non-European libraries can currently be searched in database form via Manuscripta juridica (MPI for Legal History and Legal Theory).
<Additions and supplements by Dolezalek, Leipzig; status: 2017; an expansion of his earlier work: Verzeichnis der Handschriften zum römischen Recht bis 1600 (Directory of manuscripts on Roman law up to 1600), 4 volumes, Frankfurt am Main 1972.>
- Tools for resolving references to Roman and canon law (allegationes)
- Indices Corporis Iuris Civilis, ed. by X. Ochoa, A. Diez, 1965 (PDF, 23,885 KB) [searchable as full text after downloading]
- Indices Paragraphorum Corporis Iuris Civilis, edited by U. Nicolini, F. Sinatti d'Amico, 1970 (PDF, 22,785 KB) [searchable as full text after downloading]
- Indices Corporis Iuris Canonici, ed. by X. Ochoa, A. Diez, 1967 (PDF, 14,181 KB) [searchable as full text after downloading]
- Stephan Kuttner (1907–1996) was the founder of the modern academic study of canon law. He published extensively in this field (the list of his writings can be found here (PDF, 177 KB)) and was forced to emigrate to the United States via Rome. Between 1933 and 1938, he did research and was employed at the Vatican Library. Afterwards he taught at Yale University where he founded the Institute of Medieval Canon Law. It was later relocated to Berkeley.
Until his death, he maintained an extensive correspondence with numerous scholars. A list of his correspondents can be viewed here (PDF, 2,253 KB).
<For each correspondent, the incoming letters are available in original, and the outgoing letters in copy. The letters themselves are kept in the archives of the LMU Munich University Library. Please direct any inquiries regarding access to the archive.>- Studies, excerpts, and other materials by Kuttner can be viewed in the research center (see above under II. Research Infrastructure above).
- Kuttner's reference library, special offprints sent to him, and the original microfilms are accessible via the Lillian Goldman Law Library at Yale Law School.
<The holdings of the reference library can be searched in the OPAC by entering "Kuttner Collection" as the keyword. In the advanced search, further criteria (such as author name), can be added to refine the results. More detailed information on the resources at Yale Law School can be found here.>
- Linda Fowler-Magerl bequest: Contains studies on research projects on procedural law and other materials (index cards on canones: see above under II. Research infrastructure).
- Gérard Fransen bequest: Contains photostats and index cards.
- Antonio García y García bequest: Contains photostats and additional materials.
- Sicard of Cremona
- Laborans
- Lanfrancus
- Apparatus Vetus to the Constitutions of Melfi (1231): Following extensive research into the content, characteristics, and function of the Constitutions of Melfi themselves, the glosses of the "Neapolitan jurists" on this legal code were examined within the framework of a DFG-funded research project. Conducted in collaboration with PD Dr. Michele Spadaccini, the project makes a source-critical contribution to the ongoing debate in historical and legal scholarship concerning the functions of glosses and commentaries as genres of legal literature. It draws particular attention to the origins of this specific mode of glossing. A digital edition of the glossary is currently in preparation.
The Library of the Leopold Wenger Institute for Legal History, Department B: German and Bavarian Legal History, is located within the Faculty of Law at LMU Munich. Among other resources, it houses an extensive collection of sources as well as research literature relevant to the field.
<Search strategy: Enter "0312" in the "Signature" field in the UB-OPAC and search by author or title.>
- Peter Landau, who served as president of the Institute of Medieval Canon Law from 1991 to 2013, initiated numerous editorial projects in the field of canon law and published extensively. His own publications (PDF, 604 KB) are available, along with a collection of special offprints donated to him (index cards at the research center).
- Early modern incunabula prints of the central ius commune texts in microfiche form (PDF, 1,057 KB) (Prof. Lepsius' personal collection) and other prints of learned law as retro copies (PDF, 530 KB) (located in V208) are available through the Chair of Prof. Lepsius.
- Stefan Kuttner Research Library, now part of the Lilian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School (index cards of the original Kuttner library can be consulted on site in Munich)