constitutions and codifications, 1667–2017 lish a theoretical framework for historical interpretations of a constitution 200 years old and still in effect? It seemed important to analyse – and transcend – the blurred borders between history and dogmatics, if only so that legal history could contribute to legal science by thematizing the legal knowledge. First, to do the constitutional history of an old constitution still in effect means that large portions of the constitutional text were identical both as historical and as contemporary legal texts.20 It would be best to distance oneself from the constitution as a contemporary legal document by the well-known process of historization. Easier said than done, as the constitution is now actual Norwegian law, and, I may add, contains hundreds of articles that have standardized society over the 200 years – rules that surround our lives, here and now. Inevitably, tensions arise between the constitution as the property of modern lawyers – with their own legal instrumental history – and the constitution as the property of constitutional historians. In addition to historization, the specific quality of the legal constitutional historian’s interpretation rests in the significance (and perhaps autonomy) of the legal analysis as part of a historical interpretation, aiming at historical knowledge and not contemporary legal knowledge. However, we all know how constitutional law and constitutional legal history are interwoven in many often unpredictable ways. Second, Norwegian constitutional history has become a history of national identity. This is a challenge for a constitutional historian. In the same way as constitutional history must be distanced from the contemporary legal viewpoint as a historical premise, constitutional history ought to be distanced from a specific national historical research tradition, if the aim is to avoid repetition. One way of doing this is to focus on what I would call the constitution as a generic normative entity in history, and go beyond the ingrained ideological interpretations inherit in the national narrative. By 1814, around 130 constitutions had been enacted around the world, making it a global legal invention.21 That does 20 What follows is a reworking of Holmøyvik & Michalsen 2015, 43–8. 21 For an important study, see Dieter Grimm&Heinz Mohnhaupt, Verfassung: Zur Geschichte des Begriff von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1995). 339
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