Preface to volume 1, issue 1

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gation of legal history in contemporary European scholarship, members of comparative law and legal history networks across Europe came together in late 2009 ...
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Preface to volume 1, issue 1 Born out of frustration with the narrow nationalism and geographical segregation of legal history in contemporary European scholarship, members of comparative law and legal history networks across Europe came together in late 2009 to formally establish the European Society for Comparative Legal History (ESCLH). Limited neither to Europeans nor to European legal history, the association has gone from strength to strength. The ESCLH aims to promote comparative legal history, the comparison of individuals, ideas and institutions—independent or entangled—from two or more legal traditions. In doing so, its founders acknowledge that comparative law and legal history are fundamentally related. Comparatists and legal historians are both travellers: the one in space, the other in time. By necessity, both always look beyond present borders and boundaries, including those of our national legal systems, themselves products of past and place. The ESCLH attempts to accomplish its goals in a variety of ways. Online, it provides updates on relevant events, publications, funding, etc. These are available to both members and the public. Beginning in 2010, the ESCLH has held large biennial conferences. It engages in and supports international, collaborative projects on its themes. And the ESCLH happily cooperates across national and disciplinary boundaries with those with similar or shared aims. The creation of Comparative Legal History, the official journal of the ESCLH, was an obvious outgrowth of these earlier activities. Comparative Legal History is an international and comparative review of law and history. Articles explore both internal legal history (doctrinal and disciplinary developments in the law) and external legal history (legal ideas and institutions in wider contexts). Firmly rooted in the complexity of the various Western legal traditions worldwide, it investigates other laws and law-like normative traditions around the globe. Indeed, the complex origins of all legal traditions often make research in single legal systems comparative as well, as layers of autochthonous and borrowed laws and norms are uncovered. And scholarship on comparative and transnational historiography, including trans-disciplinary approaches, is particularly welcome, providing the tools with which we might better understand our subject. Seán Patrick Donlan, Editor, Comparative Legal History Aniceto Masferrer, President, European Society for Comparative Legal History 1 May 2013