part i • supreme courts • serge dauchy nal Rezeptionsgeschichte.10 Each central court was analysed using each question in turn to identify similarities and differences – meticulous work orchestrated by Diestelkamp with a firm but benevolent hand – but the necessary scientific rigour could not be achieved in one session, so others were organized, including one in Jönköping at the invitation of Kjell Å. Modéer with the support of the Olin Foundation for Legal History. The result was the first book dedicated to a comparative history of the European central courts.11 Diestelkamp’s initiative paved the way for more detailed comparative research and stood as an example for many others. In 1995, for example, an exhibition marking the 500th anniversary of the foundation of the Imperial Chamber gave considerable space to the central courts of England, France, the Low Countries, Italy, Poland, and Sweden.12 Other initiatives include Friedrich Battenberg and Filippo Ranieri’s Geschichte der Zentraljustiz inMitteleuropaand Werner Ogris’sHöchstgerichte in Europa.13 Building on the solid foundations of the second half of the twentieth century, legal historians have inrecentyears explorednew researchthemes. With the printing revolution, a new genre of legal literature appeared: printed collections of court decisions and reports, compiled by judges and lawyers. Booksellers promoted these compendia as useful for both young and more experienced lawyers looking for precedents and material for legal argumentation. Several research projects have studied these printed collections, of which the most complete list is still arguably Helmut Coing’s inHandbuch der Quellen und Literatur der neueren Europäischen 10 See, for example, Alain Wijffels, Qui millies allegatur: Les allégations du droit savant dans les dossiers du Grand Conseil de Malines (causes septentrionales, ca. 1460–1580), 2 vols (Leiden: Brill, 1985). 11 Bernhard Diestelkamp (ed.), Oberste Gerichtsbarkeit und zentrale Gewalt imEuropa der frühen Neuzeit (Quellen und Forschungen zur höchsten Gerichtsbarkeit im Alten Reich, 29; Cologne: Böhlau, 1996). 12 Ingrid Scheurmann (ed.), Frieden durch Recht: Das Reichskammergericht von 1495 bis 1806 (Mainz: Philipp von Zabern, 1994). 13 Friedrich Battenberg & Filippo Ranieri (eds.), Geschichte der Zentraljustiz in Mitteleuropa: Festschrift für Bernhard Diestelkamp zum 65. Geburtstag (Weimar: Böhlau, 1994); Leopold Auer, Werner Ogris & Eva Ortlieb (eds.), Höchstgerichte in Europa: Bausteine frühneuzeitlicher Rechtsordnungen (Quellen und Forschungen zur höchsten Gerichtsbarkeit im Alten Reich, 53; Cologne: 2007). 90
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