From the early days of European settlement in North America, Christianity has had a profound impact on American law and culture. This volume profiles nineteen of America's most influential Christian jurists from the early colonial era to the present day. Anyone interested in American legal history and jurisprudence, the role Christianity has played throughout the nation's history, and the relationship between faith and law will enjoy this worthy and unique study. The jurists covered in this collection were pious men and women, but that does not mean they agreed on how faith should inform law. From Roger Williams and John Cotton to Antonin Scalia and Mary Ann Glendon, America's great Christian jurists have brought their faith to bear on the practice of law in different ways and to different effects.

The Great Christian Jurists series comprises a library of national volumes of detailed biographies of leading jurists, judges and practitioners, assessing the impact of their Christian faith on the professional output of the individuals studied. Spanish legal culture, developed during the Spanish Golden Age, has had a significant influence on the legal norms and institutions that emerged in Europe and in Latin America. This volume examines the lives of twenty key personalities in Spanish legal history, in particular how their Christian faith was a factor in molding the evolution of law. Each chapter discusses a jurist within his or her intellectual and political context. All chapters have been written by distinguished legal scholars from Spain and around the world. This diversity of international and methodological perspectives gives the volume its unique character; it will appeal to scholars, lawyers, and students interested in the interplay between religion and law.

The Great Christian Jurists series comprises a library of national volumes of detailed biographies of leading jurists, judges and practitioners, assessing the impact of their Christian faith on the professional output of the individuals studied. Little has previously been written about the faith of the great judges who framed and developed the English common law over centuries, but this unique volume explores how their beliefs were reflected in their judicial functions. This comparative study, embracing ten centuries of English law, draws some remarkable conclusions as to how Christianity shaped the views of lawyers and judges. Adopting a long historical perspective, this volume also explores the lives of judges whose practice in or conception of law helped to shape the Church, its law or the articulation of its doctrine.

Firmly rooted on Roman and canon law, Italian legal culture has had an impressive influence on the civil law tradition from the Middle Ages to present day, and it is rightly regarded as "the cradle of the European legal culture." Along with Justinian’s compilation, the US Constitution, and the French Civil Code, the Decretum of Master Gratian or the so-called Glossa ordinaria of Accursius are one of the few legal sources that have influenced the entire world for centuries. This volume explores a millennium-long story of law and religion in Italy through a series of twenty-six biographical chapters written by distinguished legal scholars and historians from Italy and around the world. The chapters range from the first Italian civilians and canonists, Irnerius and Gratian in the early twelfth century, to the leading architect of the Second Vatican Council, Pope Paul VI. Between these two bookends, this volume offers notable case studies of familiar civilians like Bartolo, Baldo, and Gentili and familiar canonists like Hostiensis, Panormitanus, and Gasparri but also a number of other jurists in the broadest sense who deserve much more attention especially outside of Italy. This diversity of international and methodological perspectives gives the volume its unique character. The book will be essential reading for academics working in the areas of Legal History, Law and Religion, and Constitutional Law and will appeal to scholars, lawyers, and students interested in the interplay between religion and law in the era of globalization.

French legal culture, from the Middle Ages to the present day, has had an impressive influence on legal norms and institutions that have emerged in Europe and the Americas, as well as in Asian and African countries. This volume examines the lives of twenty-seven key legal thinkers in French history, with a focus on how their Christian faith and ideals were a factor in framing the evolution of French jurisprudence. Professors Olivier Descamps and Rafael Domingo bring together this diverse group of distinguished legal scholars and historians to provide a unique comparative study of law and religion that will be of value to scholars, lawyers, and students. The collaboration among French and non-French scholars, and the diversity of international and methodological perspectives, gives this volume its own unique character and value to add to this fascinating series.

This volume examines the lives of more than thirty-five key personalities in Latin American law with a focus on how their Christian faith was a factor in molding the evolution of law in their countries and the region. The book is a significant contribution to our ability to understand the work and perspectives of jurists and their effect on legal development in Latin America. The individuals selected for study exhibit wide-ranging areas of expertise from private law and codification, through national public law and constitutional law, to international developments that left their mark on the region and the world. The chapters discuss the jurists within their historical, intellectual, and political context. The editors selected jurists after extensive consultation with legal historians in various countries of the region looking at the jurist’s particular merits, contributions to law in general, religious perspective, and importance within the specific country and period under consideration. Giving the work a diversity of international and methodological perspectives, the chapters have been written by distinguished legal scholars and historians from Latin America and around the world. The collection will appeal to scholars, lawyers, and students interested in the interplay between law and religion. Political, social, legal, and religious historians among other readers will find, for the first time in English, authoritative treatments of the region’s essential legal thinkers and authors. Students and other who may not read Spanish will appreciate these clear, accessible, and engaging English studies of the region’s great jurists.

This book presents a comprehensive history of law and religion in the Nordic context. The entwinement of law and religion in Scandinavia encompasses an unusual history, not widely known yet important for its impact on contemporary political and international relations in the region. The volume provides a holistic picture from the first written legal sources of the twelfth century to the law of the present secular welfare states. It recounts this history through biographical case studies. Taking the point of view of major influential figures in church, politics, university, and law, it thus presents the principal actors who served as catalysts in ecclesiastical and secular law through the centuries. This refreshing approach to legal history contributes to a new trend in historiography, particularly articulated by a younger generation of experienced Nordic scholars whose work is featured prominently in this volume. The collection will be a valuable resource for academics and researchers working in the areas of Legal History and Law and Religion.