The University of Glasgow has an active and engaged community of historians who write, teach and supervise in a wide number of areas of legal history. Legal historians in the School of Law convene under the headship of Prof Ernest Metzger. The School's particular strengths lie in Scottish legal history, European legal history, and Roman law.
Members are engaged widely in projects and ventures nationally and internationally. They hold offices in historical societies and on the boards of periodicals, and speak at international venues. They contribute actively to the literature.
Legal history is not simply about "how people used to govern themselves". It is also a way of provoking a modern discipline that reflects too rarely on why it does what it does: why it clings to certain methods of reasoning, why it looks for solutions here but not there, why it reuses certain words and ideas. Law is never aloof from its creators: legal history shows this.
This site
Visitors to this site will find information about members; their interests and their books; and the courses they teach. There is also information about projects and ventures relating to legal history, supported by the University of Glasgow.
News
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30 MayJames Hamilton, Research Principal of the WS Society, will speak on 'Legal Bibliophilia in the Dear Green Place: Dr David Murray's lost law archive and his Glasgow 1860-1928'. There will also be a display of items from the Library's Murray Collection.
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02 Mar
Metzger speaks at congress honouring Dieter Nörr
Ernest Metzger, Douglas Professor of Civil Law at the University of Glasgow, spoke at a congress in Munich honouring the memory of Dieter Nörr (1931-2017). -
08 Feb
Graeme Cunningham is awarded a Ph.D.
Graeme Cunningham has been awarded a PhD for his work in Roman law and rhetoric.

Legal history blog
