Nova Ratione

Adriaan Johan Boudewijn Sirks

"Do we see shifts in Roman law, and is there a connection with 'Grundauffassungen' which make these shifts paradigmatic? The contributions in this book make clear indeed that there were what we call paradigms ('Grundauffassungen'), and that shifts occurred - in society, in economy, in culture, in intellectual life -, between the end of the Republic and the Early Principate, which had profound implications for law and within law; and that even law itself as an intellectual creation underwent paradigmatic changes. Four contributions deal with changes in the law of contracts: Fiori points out that there was a drive to specify contracts, after which a certain return to a general model occurred; Sirks focuses on the rise of the concept of conventio behind the contracts, while Schermaier analyses the resulting effect of the introduction of error on contractual theory. Santucci, again,...