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10 Comp. Legal Hist. 1 (2022)

handle is hein.journals/clehory10 and id is 1 raw text is: Comparative Legal History, 2022                                Routledge
Vol. 10, No. 1, 1-2, https://doi.org/10.1080/2049677X.2022.2063509  Tayor'ands roup
Editorial
The journal has now reached its tenth volume, continuously offering a forum for
comparative legal historians and their work. The content of the existing volumes
attests that the journal endorses the efforts of the European Society for Compara-
tive Legal History (ESCLH). Together, the journal and the ESCLH aim to develop
and disseminate disciplinary studies that look at law across time and space.
Issue 1 of Volume 10 offers methodological tools and exemplary studies that
ought to be considered by those who aim to engage in comparative legal historical
exercises. The articles section of this issue confirms the above statement by means
of three articles. The first article, by Caroline Laske, offers a much needed toolbox
that can be used when the subject of study relates to the language within a source.
The author alerts readers of the usefulness of corpus linguistics methodologies
when aiming to answer questions that require the unveiling of patterns in legal
language usage and ways of encoding meanings. After all, language is a funda-
mental conduit for the law. The second article, by Gustaaf van Nifterik, offers
an example of how the activities of actors - at different times and places - can
be interconnected, with the potential of showing common, diverging, or recurring
narratives. The author offers a 'dialogue' between Edward Coke, Fernando
Vazquez de Menchaca, Jean Bodin, and Hugo de Groot on iurisdictio and imper-
ium. The author does not hesitate to point to a Europe-wide process. The third
article, by Ricardo Pelegrin Taboada, takes the readers to the Americas and ana-
lyses the development of the legal profession during the Spanish Colonial period
and until the emergence of republics in the nineteenth century. The focus is on
Mexico and Cuba, offering transatlantic and inter-American bridges. The
author attends the different roles played by universities, bar associations, and
the existing elites. The three articles in this issue confirm that comparative
legal history is a discipline that cannot be circumscribed to a specific time and
place, being therefore broad and diverse in its scope.
The book reviews section of this issue presents a sample of the specialized
literature that continues to develop in the field of comparative legal history.
The first book reviewed deals with international law in West Africa under
British colonialism, hence addressing a part of the Globe that continues to
require more attention in the pages of the journal. The second book reviewed
undertakes a comparative exploration of the relationship between guilds and
the development of insurance, hence bridging an important lacuna in the field.
The third book reviewed deals with a pillar of private law, looking at the
family and marital property mainly around Northern Italy and the Austrian
realm. That work offers valuable approaches from social anthropology and

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