legal compilation in early modern denmark and norway to be an (unoriginal) compiler was a common strategy to avoid censorship.67 We know Holberg was forced to delete parts of the original content of the book, among other passages the whole chapter on ‘natural religion’.68 The imprimatur, the permission to print the book, was provided by professor Henrik Weghorst.69 Weghorst had earlier criticized both Pufendorf ’s and Grotius’ ideas of natural religion of undermining public order and the Protestant foundations of the Danish–Norwegian kingdoms.70 Against this background, it seemed reasonable to assume that Holberg had to remove an already finished chapter on natural religion in his first edition. However, even once he was a professor at the University in Copenhagen and thus had the privilege to publish without being censored, he did not choose to reintegrate this material in his textbook. Evidently, he did not consider natural religion necessary to his account of natural law theory. Because his intended audience was almost entirely Protestant, there was no need to elaborate on the highly controversial concept of natural religion. Consequently, understanding the nature and impact of compilations means one must also consider the source materials, what the author chose not to include in his compilation, and the reasons why he did not incorporate this material. Later textbooks on natural law also borrowed heavily from German scholars: Lautitz Nørregaard was inspired by Christian Wolff and Johan Ernst Gunnerus by Joachim Georg Darjes, while Johan Frederik Vilhelm Schlegel compiled fragments of Immanuel Kant’s Allgemeine Rechtslehre and translated them into Danish.71 67 See Sejersted 2012, 159 ff.; Koch 2015, 199; Haakonssen 2017, 56. 68 Koch 2015, 198. 69 Holberg 1716. 70 Weghorst 1696, ch. 1§ 14 p. 9: ‘Preæpta juris naturæ non dependant à voluntate humana’. 71 Lautitz Nørregaard, Naturens og Folkerettens første Grunde, 2 vols (Copenhagen 1776); Christian Wolff, Grundsätze des Natur- und Völckerrechts worin alle Verbindlichkeiten und alle Rechte aus der Natur des Menschen in beständigemZusammenhang hergeleitet warden(Halle, 1754, repr. Halle: Olms 1984); Johan Ernst Gunnerus, Forberedelse til Natur- og Folkeretten(Copenhagen, 1758); Joachim Georg Darjes, Discours über sein Natur- und Völckerrecht (Halle, 1767). For the extent to which all these authors borrowed from German models, see Nøtvik Jakobsen 2012. 215
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjYyNDk=