Dirk van den Auweele and Randall Lesaffer 270 merits of these three initiatives are extremely important, which is among others due to the fact that they help to place research in the lowcountries in an international context. Fourthly, the society Standen en Landen/Anciens Pays et Assemhlees d’Etat should be mentioned. This society has a wide scope as it is also concerned with institutional and political history. This Belgian society also contains some Dutch members. The society clearly stresses its international vocation. Fifthly, we would like to point at the Belgian-Dutch participation in the Société Jean Bodin pour I’histoire comparative des institutions, the Deutsche Rechtshistorikertag and the French Société de VHistoire du Droit, the Société de VHistoire du Droit des Pays Flamands, Picards et Wallons and in the editorial board of the Dutch Legal History Reviev. Finally, in Belgium the very active and dynamic attitude of the royal archives in Brussels should not be underestimated when institutional history is involved. For the general archivist Ernest Persoons, the study of the sources present in the archives and of institutional history form the bulwark of the work done at the archives. For legal history, this is essential. In the recent past, several surveys of the research into legal history have been made. In the series lura Scripta Historica, sponsored by the Committee of the Royal Academy, some comprehensive or partial evalutations were published on the situation in different European countries.- The 1993 issue of the Dutch Legal History Reviezv was devoted to legal history in Belgium and the Netherlands from 1918 till 1993. This issue offers the most comprehensive survey of the options made in legal historical research and proves that research activities in our countries are intense and of high quality, but very traditional and rarely innovative.^ The main accents of the ongoing research are as follows. Recently, three doctoral theses have been devoted to feudal law in the countv of Flanders and the duchy of Brabant. These doctorates led to further research activity in this domain. Two of these doctorates contain a legal perspective, the other one is merely historical."^ - Raoul Van Caenegem, cd.. Legal History on the Treshold of the Tu'cnty-first Century. Proceedings of the Colloquium held at Brussels on 21 and 22 October 1993 (luris Scripta Historica VIII, Brussels, 1994). ‘De beoefening van de rechtsgeschiedenis in Belgie en Nederland, 191S-1993. Twaalf bijdragen aangeboden ter gelegenheid van bet 75-jarig bestaan van het Tijdschrih voor Rechtsgeschiedenis’ in Tijschrift voor Rechtsgeschiedenis, 61 (1993) 309—170. The thesis of Rik Opsommer, published as Omrne dat leengoed is thoochste dine van der zverelt: het leenrecht in Vlaanderen in de 14de en de 15de eeuv (Algemcen Rijksarchief en Rpksarchief in de Provincien. Studia 60, 2 vol., Brussels, 1995) concerns the legal aspects of feudalism.
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