Ethnicity and Legal Pluralism in the Early Middle Ages
Stefan Esders (FU Berlin)
In the early medieval period, we can observe the rise of ethnically defined legal pluralism. This meant that in the courts of the Frankish kingdom, Franks, Romans, Alamans, Bavarians, Burgundians, Lombards, and members of further ethnic groups had to be treated according to their respective laws. In contrast to recent scholarship, which has emphasized the fluidity of ethnic and other categories of distinction, the lecture proceeds from the observation that law in this period tended to simplify ethnic categories and make them as unambiguous as possible, because otherwise one could not clarify the legal identity and status of an individual. On this basis, it will describe the rise of ethnically defined legal pluralism, discuss some of the more theoretical and practical problems inherent in it, and analyse attempts to solve potential norm conflicts arising from it.
Stefan Esders studied history and Latin at Heidelberg University, the University of Freiburg, and the University of Oxford, and has been Professor of Late Antique and Early Medieval History at the Freie Universität Berlin since 2006. His current research concentrates on the ‘barbarian’ kingdoms of the post-Roman West, with a special focus on their legal and social history.
