LAW AND PRIVATE LIFE IN THE MIDDLE AGES
29 April – 1 May 2009
Carlsberg Academy, Copenhagen
Programme:
Wednesday 29 April
09.00-09.30: Registration of participants
09.30-09.45: Welcome speech by Ditlev Tamm
09.45-10.45: Keynote Lecture by Richard H. Helmholz (Chicago): The Medieval Ecclesiastical
Courts: Were They Courts of Law?
10.45-11.00: Short break
11.00-12.50: Session I. Aspects of Late Medieval Marriage
Peter D. Clarke (Southampton): The Papal Penitentiary and Marriage: Central Authority and
Local Powers.
Kirsi Salonen (Rome/Helsinki): The Apostolic Penitentiary and Domestic Violence.
Christof Rolker (Constance): Marriage Contracts, the Marital Economy and Symbolic Goods in
Late-Medieval Germany.
12.50-14.00: Lunch
14.00-15.15: Session II. Incest and Impotence in Canon Law
Frederik Keygnaert (Leuven): Canonical Legislation on Incest and Excommunication in SixthCentury Gaul.
Frederik Pedersen (Aberdeen): Privates on Parade: Impotence and the Medieval English Church
Courts.
15.15-15.45: Coffee and Tea Break
15.45-17.00: Session III. Learned Jurisprudence and the Private Sphere
Helge Dedek (McGill, Montreal): School of Life: Medieval Jurisprudence and the Scholastic
Method.
Karsten Fledelius (Copenhagen): Canon Law versus Secular Law in Byzantium c. 900.
17.00-17.15: Coffee and Tea Break
17.15-18.30: Session IV. Private vs. Public Life
Paul Trio (Leuven): The Development of Urban Private Law in the Low Countries during the 13 th
Century.
Peter Petkoff (Oxford): Roman and Canon Law Influences of Distinction between Public and
Private Life in the Commentaries of Theodore Balsamon (12th c.).
18.30-19.00: Drinks in the Academy Winter Garden
19.00-22.00: Conference dinner
Thursday 30 April
09.00-10.15: Session V. Adultery and Concubinage
Stephen D. White (Emory, Atlanta): Prosecuting and Proving Sexual Infidelity at the Court of
King Arthur: The Case of Guinevere vs. Lanval.
Mia Korpiola (Helsinki): The Private Life of Archbishop Johannes Gerechini: Clerical
Concubinage and Simulated Marriage in Early Fifteenth-Century Sweden.
10.15-10.30: Coffee break
10.30-11.45: Session VI. Family in the Canon Law Collections
Martin Brett (Cambridge) and Bruce C. Brasington (West Texas A & M): Changes in Family
Law: From Burchard of Worms to Ivo of Chartres.
Harry Dondorp (Amsterdam): TITLE TO BE CONFIRMED
11.45-12.00: Short break
12.00-13.15: Session VII. Sex and Celibacy
Hendrik Callewier (Leuven): Canon Law and Celibacy: The Sexual Urges of the Secular Clergy in
Fifteenth-Century Bruges.
Bjørn Bandlien (Oslo): Sexuality in the Early Church Laws in Norway and Iceland.
13.15-14.30: Lunch
14.30-16.15: Session VIII. Age and Life Cycles
Youval Rotman (Yale): What is a Child’s Will? Children’s Agency and Child Labour in Byzantium.
Chiara Benati (Genova): ‘Voremunden hebben’: Children, Elderly and Impaired People in Eike
von Repgow’s Sachsenspiegel.
Jakub Wysmulek (Warsaw): Family from the Perspective of the Dying – Evaluating the Power of
Testaments.
16.15-16.45: Coffee and Tea Break
16.45-18.00: Session IX. Law in the Urban Space
Mario Ascheri (Rome/Siena): The Law of Private Life in a Tuscan City in Dante's Time.
Lukasz Truscinski (Warsaw): Marital Cases of Town Inhabitants in Church Courts of Medieval
Poland.
Friday 1 May
09.00-16.30: Excursion to North Zealand including Elsinore, Ebelholt Abbey & Birkerød
Church.