nordic legal science: diversity and unity as a distant inspiring example; its doctrine was too theoretical for use in practice. Nordic legal science was never that isolated, and even in the Middle Ages it was common to study abroad, although at first it was only the clergywho did so, studying canon law. In the eighteenth century not only Nehrman, but also his contemporary Danish colleague Andreas Hoier (1690–1739) had studied in Halle, then the most modern German university. In the nineteenth century it was standard, almost compulsory, for Nordic legal scholars to study abroad, still preferably in Germany; in the 1870s Henning Matzen (1840–1910) could not be nominated as a professor at the University of Copenhagen until he had visited a couple of German universities. At least in Finland, these trips to Germany were still very common among young legal scholars in the early twentieth century, and even after 1933. The significance of German legal science in the nineteenth century ensured a ready welcome for Begriffsjurisprudenz – constructivism as a method – especially in Sweden and Finland, where legal science was less developed than in Denmark and Norway. In these countries, constructivism had already been replaced by a pragmatic, early realism before the First World War. It was significant that this early Western Nordic realism, the opposite of Scandinavian realism or the Uppsala School, was based on Rudolf von Jhering’s later works. At any rate, the importance of German legal science diminished rapidly in the 1930s and was all but gone in 1945. What then is so ‘Nordic’ about Nordic legal science? Legal works with a Nordic approach have always been rare, but Nordic legal periodicals are important. Tidsskrift for Rettsvitenskap (‘Journal of Legal Science’) founded in 1888 and still going strong, is the flagship of these periodicals. It is a fact that most specialized legal journals in the Nordic countries today are inter-Nordic because national readerships are too small to sustain a periodical. Nordic legal scholars often have to support their findings with material from other countries, especially their Nordic neighbours, as many of the Nordic statutes are similar, if not identical, having been drafted by joint committees of experts. One Swedish legal scholar has said that legal writers in many respects treat Nordic law as a whole. 195
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