scholarly journals Medieval Universities, Legal Institutions, and the Commercial Revolution

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Davide Cantoni ◽  
Noam Yuchtman
Keyword(s):  
Legal Institutions ◽  
Medieval Universities

scholarly journals Medieval Universities, Legal Institutions, and the Commercial Revolution *

2014 ◽  
Vol 129 (2) ◽  
pp. 823-887 ◽  
Author(s):  
Davide Cantoni ◽  
Noam Yuchtman
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Economic Activity ◽  
Canon Law ◽  
Law Students ◽  
Causal Role ◽  
Legal Institutions ◽  
Medieval Germany ◽  
Medieval Universities ◽  
The Middle Ages ◽  
Legal Training

AbstractWe present new data documenting medieval Europe’s Commercial Revolution using information on the establishment of markets in Germany. We use these data to test whether medieval universities played a causal role in expanding economic activity, examining the foundation of Germany’s first universities after 1386 following the papal schism. We find that the trend rate of market establishment breaks upward in 1386 and this break is greatest where the distance to a university shrank most. There is no differential pre-1386 trend associated with the reduction in distance to a university, and there is no break in trend in 1386 where university proximity did not change. These results are robust to estimating a variety of specifications that address concerns about the endogeneity of university location. Universities provided training in newly rediscovered Roman and canon law; students with legal training served in positions that reduced the uncertainty of trade in the Middle Ages. We argue that training in the law, and the consequent development of legal and administrative institutions, was an important channel linking universities and greater economic activity in medieval Germany.

The Evolution of a Nation

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Berkowitz ◽  
Karen B. Clay
Keyword(s):  
Political Competition ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Civil Law ◽  
Legal Institutions ◽  
Colonial History ◽  
Legal Systems ◽  
Water Transportation ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Access To Water ◽  
Late Twentieth

Although political and legal institutions are essential to any nation's economic development, the forces that have shaped these institutions are poorly understood. Drawing on rich evidence about the development of the American states from the mid-nineteenth to the late twentieth century, this book documents the mechanisms through which geographical and historical conditions—such as climate, access to water transportation, and early legal systems—impacted political and judicial institutions and economic growth. The book shows how a state's geography and climate influenced whether elites based their wealth in agriculture or trade. States with more occupationally diverse elites in 1860 had greater levels of political competition in their legislature from 1866 to 2000. The book also examines the effects of early legal systems. Because of their colonial history, thirteen states had an operational civil-law legal system prior to statehood. All of these states except Louisiana would later adopt common law. By the late eighteenth century, the two legal systems differed in their balances of power. In civil-law systems, judiciaries were subordinate to legislatures, whereas in common-law systems, the two were more equal. Former civil-law states and common-law states exhibit persistent differences in the structure of their courts, the retention of judges, and judicial budgets. Moreover, changes in court structures, retention procedures, and budgets occur under very different conditions in civil-law and common-law states. This book illustrates how initial geographical and historical conditions can determine the evolution of political and legal institutions and long-run growth.

Legal Institutions and the Structure of Informal Networks

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ethan Bueno de Mesquita ◽  
Matthew Caleb Stephenson
Keyword(s):  
Legal Institutions ◽  
Informal Networks

Common Law Constitutionalism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
William E. Nelson
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Legal Profession ◽  
Legal Institutions ◽  
Law System ◽  
The Common ◽  
Common Law System

This chapter shows how common law pleading, the use of common law vocabulary, and substantive common law rules lay at the foundation of every colony’s law by the middle of the eighteenth century. There is some explanation of how this common law system functioned in practice. The chapter then discusses why colonials looked upon the common law as a repository of liberty. It also discusses in detail the development of the legal profession individually in each of the thirteen colonies. Finally, the chapter ends with a discussion of the role of legislation. It shows that, although legislation had played an important role in the development of law and legal institutions in the seventeenth century, eighteenth-century Americans were suspicious of legislation, with the result that the output of pre-Revolutionary legislatures was minimal.

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