The Law's Beginnings

Download or read book The Law's Beginnings written by Ferdinand J.M. Feldbrugge and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2021-09-13 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Law, as we know it, with its rules and rituals, its procedures and professionals, has not been around forever. It came into being, it emerged, at different places and different times. Sources which allow us to observe the processes of law’s beginnings have survived in some cases. In this book, scholars from various disciplines–linguists, lawyers, historians, anthropologists–present their findings concerning the earliest legal systems of a great variety of peoples and civilizations, from Mesopotamia and Ancient India to Greece and Rome, from the early Germanic, Celtic and Slavic nations, but also from other parts of the world. The general picture is complemented by an investigation into the Indo-European roots of a number of ancient legal systems, contributions from the point of view of legal philosophy and theory, and an overview of the insights gained.