Communicating the Law in Europe, 1500-1750

法治是政治社会的普遍原则。我们期待政府制定好的法律，我们有责任尊重和遵守这些法律。支撑这种国家与公民关系的关键是认识到，必须先了解法律，然后才能遵守法律。这些信息传播的过程是这个项目的核心，该项目调查了现代欧洲早期（1500-1750）政府如何将法律传达给公民和臣民。它对城市、地区和国家法律的出版和流通进行了原创性的比较研究。它包括口头交流，通过仪式公告和雇用哭喊者，以及粘贴、分发和销售手稿和印刷形式的法律文本。这个项目的中心论点是，如果不考虑谁以何种方式被告知法律，就不能研究早期现代政治和法律制定。基于广泛的档案研究，该项目将首次试图确定在现代早期欧洲发布的不断增加的法律体系在多大程度上是公开的，以及以什么形式公开。这将为国家形成的关键时代的欧洲政治研究增加一个新的和急需的视角，将法律交流作为一个高度参与但非民主政治时代的重要稳定因素。该项目将提供多种比较框架，通过这些框架来研究法律交流，包括新教和天主教国家、城市和农村地区、帝国、民族王国和城邦。在这种比较视角的帮助下，分析法律的公共传播如何塑造早期现代公民社会并影响政治参与和问责制将是本项目的总体目标。

The rule of law is a universal principle of political societies. We expect government to enact good laws, and we have the responsibility to respect and observe those laws. Underpinning this relationship between state and citizen is the crucial recognition that the law must be known before it can be observed. The process by which this information is disseminated is at the heart of this proposed project, which investigates how law was communicated to citizens and subjects by governments in early modern Europe (1500-1750). It offers an original comparative study of the publication and circulation of municipal, regional and national law. It encompasses oral communication, through ceremonial proclamations and the employment of criers, as well as the affixing, distribution and sale of law texts, in manuscript and printed form.It is the central contention of this project that one cannot study early modern politics and law making without considering who was informed of law, and in what manner. Based on extensive archival research, this project will seek to establish for the first time to what extent the increasing body of law that was issued in early modern Europe was made publicly available, and in what forms. This will add a new and much-needed perspective to the study of European politics in a critical era of state formation, framing the communication of law as an essential stabilising factor in an era of highly participatory but undemocratic politics. This project will offer multiple comparative frameworks through which the communication of law will be studied, including Protestant and Catholic states, urban and rural areas, and empires, national kingdoms and city-states. With the aid of such a comparative lens, it will be an overarching aim of this project to analyse how the public dissemination of law shaped early modern civic society and influenced political participation and accountability.