part iv • intellectual legal history • søren koch frequently defined by drawing adistinction with other types of legal writings, such as scientifically structured codifications or treatises comprising original content.6 The method of compiling legal texts has not been analysed systematically either. Against this background, adopting an operationalized concept of compilation seems feasible. I define compilation as a two-tier process, consisting of (i) (re-)organizing existing text and text fragments as a new body of text, and (ii) transferring this text into a new format. What are the advantages? Integrating texts into a new format and context allows compilers to create new knowledge. By recomposing selected texts in a new format and context, the original meaning can be preserved, amended, or modified.7 Compilers can also choose whether to obscure or deliberately acknowledge their original sources, for example to avoid censorship.8 A compiler’s choice of texts and how to include them would have considerable impact on the compilation’s message.9 Importantly, however, compilation helps disseminate knowledge and create authority by stabilizing and canonizing texts. Why is compilation attractive for lawyers? It allows them to draw together selected texts and excerpts into a single accessible source to help them build legal arguments; it is therefore an act of recognizing the authority of texts and any legal rules stated therein. Compilations thus shape legal practice, contributing to the creation and dissemination of legal knowledge and the establishing of specific understandings of legal authority in a national context. In the past, legal texts produced in this way were the precondition for the systematization and development of 6 Stig Iuul, Kodifikation eller kompilation? (Copenhagen: B. Lunos, 1954). 7 For intention, see Denis Renevey’s definition in the Devotional Compilations Project on late mediaeval religiosity in England, people.unil.ch/denisrenevey/. 8 For example, the first law textbook in the vernacular in Denmark–Norway, Ludvig Holberg, Moralske Kierne eller Introduction til Naturens og Folkerettens Kundskab, Uddragen af de fornemste Juristers besynderlig Grotii, Pufendorfs og Thoamsii Skrifter (Copenhagen: Johan Kruse 1716). 9 An interesting example is the description of Bergenfrom 1684 in Edvard Evardsen, Bergen, ed. Olav Brattegard (Bergen: J. D. Beyer, 1952), ii. 359 ff, which has provisions compiled from various ordinances dating back to the thirteenth century, and also contemporary legal provisions on matters of obvious interest for merchants trading in Bergen. 200
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