Dirk van den Auweele and Randall Lesaffer Moreover, it must be admitted that in general the capacity of relating research into Roman law and legal history to other historical and juridical approaches is lacking. The linguistic and anthropological approaches set a good example there. The integration of these disciplines in the legal historical démarchewould be innovating. But this implies that historians and jurists should consider these domains too. The research into the Roman lawof antiquity, the Byzantine empire. Middle Ages and early modern period is bleeding dry because most researchers have no philological schooling. Research into the reception of Roman law stagnated because one can not assess the consequences of translations of the sources and of the anthropological processes. It is not sufficient to make databases containing all cases come into court, nor to elaborate on details of procedures. Results of this kind should be analysed in their broad social contexts. It would be of some avail if romanists and legal historians would acquaint themselves with the writings of Pierre Legendre who elaborated on how the law functions within a certain society. According to him, this implies the following questions. How does the law legitimise post factum and how does it structure and institutionalise antefactum} And why does during this process canon law, so often neglected by researchers, play such a predominant role?*5 276 The duality of legal history as a mere historical or as a mere juridical démarche is intellectually sterile and practically dangerous. It is imperative that one gets out of this quagmire, because the dilemmaclosely concerns the social relevance of Roman law and legal history. Reducing Roman law and legal history to mere juridical, even teleological introductions into the current law systemwithout any reference to the social context will teach both students and researchers nothing. A broad historical approach with attention to at least philosophical, linguistic and anthropological aspects is a must. Multidisciplinarity ought to be more than a battle crv. On the educational level, this implies a double approach. Both these approaches are intertwined and inextricable. Firstly, the purpose should be to give the students a historically correct insight in the legal systems of certain past eras. The courses of Roman law and legal history should have an importance in themselves as mere historical courses, independent of any possible reflection towards the present. Knowledge of the past is not only a condition to be able to define your own place in evolution. It is also a condition for respect towards the present. History has taught very little, and may have very little to teach. But one thing can be de- '5 Pierre Legendre, Ecrits juridiques du Moyen Age occidental (Variorum Collected Studies CS280, London, 1988); Idem, Le désir politique de Dieu. Etudes sur les montages de I’Etat et du Droit (Lecons VII, Paris, 1988); Idem, Trésor histonque de I’Etat en France. L’adnministration classique (Paris, 1992).
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