an inexhaustible source of information for legal history for the Paris Parlement in the early modern period, and the absence of any real catalogue, has discouraged researchers from embarking on largescale research; only the mediaeval period thus gave rise to in-depth studies.8 It should be noted, however, that these comparative studies were more likely to be initiated by historians than by legal historians, as is reflected in the themes studied, which are more concerned with the actors thanwith the jurisdictional activityof the courts: family networks, wealth, and, more broadly, the role of the high judiciary in the political, economic, social, and intellectual life of the city or province.9 The idea of a comparative research project on a European level came from abroad, however, and Diestelkamp was one of the driving forces. On his initiative, theGesellschaft für Reichskammergerichtsforschungbrought together European legal historians working on the mediaeval and early modern central courts, and before the first meeting of the working group inWetzlar he circulated a detailed questionnaire based on his experience with the records and particular issues of the Imperial Chamber. The courts’ organization and procedures; judicial appointments, training, and experience (and specific to the Imperial situation, confession); the role of lawyers, advocates, and solicitors; the form of the decisions; the role of printed collections of court decisions andconsilia; the influence of learned law, and more specifically the reception of Roman law in the practice of courts whose judges were all university trained: this was an investigation of the central courts records which was very much in the vein of traditio- ‘Conversion, exil ou clandestinité? Les protestants et l’application de la politique monarchique dans le ressort du parlement de Flandre (1668–1790)’ (PhD diss., Lille, 2017); Clotilde Fontaine, ‘Histoire du Parquet du Parlement de Flandre: Ladislas de Baralle, procureur général (1691–1714)’ (PhD diss., Lille, 2019). 8 However, there are some exceptions such as Philippe Payen, Les arrêts de règlement du Parlement de Paris au XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1997). 9 For example, Olivier Chaline & Yves Sassier (eds.), Les Parlements et la vie de la Cité (XVIe– XVIIIe siècles) (Mont-Saint-Aignan:Publications de l’université de Rouen, 2004);Caroline Le Mao (ed.), Hommes et gens du Roi dans les parlements de France à l’époque moderne (Pessac: Maison des sciences de l’homme d’Aquitaine, 2011); Serge Dauchy, Véronique DemarsSion, Hervé Leuwers & Sabrina Michel (eds.), Les parlementaires, acteurs de la vie provinciale, XVIIe–XVIIIe siècles (Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2013). 89
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjYyNDk=