What we do - profile

The team is engaged in scientific activities in the field of legal history, including interdisciplinary overlaps. It focuses mainly on Czech and Czechoslovak legal history, but it also partially deals with foreign legal history. Some members of the team deal with the specific issue of Roman law and its reception in the past and present. Some of them also deal with legal archaeology, including the depiction of law in art and symbolism in law. Last but not least, the team members deal with the history and present of individual legal professions.

Theoretical and practical applicability

The research conducted by the team fills in the gaps in the processing of legal history and supplements the existing knowledge of individual topics. It is important not only for legal science and historiography, but also for other humanities and legal practice. The results of legal-historical research are also important for the present. In many cases, the institutes of the recent legal order have deep roots in legal history, and for their interpretation and use, it is often important to know their original historical meaning and the possibilities and limits of their application in the past. In the past, it is possible to find a number of inspirations for the present and the future, and thus for certain considerations de lege ferenda.

Currently solved tasks

The team members are mainly engaged in research in their areas of specialization, covering a wide range of legal and historical issues, including issues of Czechoslovak statehood, the development of criminal law, as well as issues of medieval and modern reception of Roman law and especially its influence on civil law. Part of the team is also engaged in the processing of the history of legal professions, especially the history of advocacy.

What we offer

In addition to standard scientific activities in the broad field of legal history (including the history of public administration), the team is able to conduct legal-historical analyses of various legal institutes or specific cases. It focuses mainly on the Czech and Czechoslovak areas, while the specializations of individual team members allow for full coverage of both individual historical periods and legal branches.

What is our history?

The team is made up of the vast majority of members of the Department of Legal History. It has been stable for a long time, having been at the faculty since its inception, and has been gradually expanded, primarily by selected faculty graduates and other newly hired staff.

The team members regularly publish their professional results in the form of articles and monographs, and actively participate in conferences both in the Czech Republic and abroad. They have worked on a number of different projects funded by public institutions and within the framework of contractual research.