Öffentliches Recht in Gestalt der Leges Fundamentales im mittelalterlichen Alten Reich

Our present understanding of “public law” is conditioned above all by its opposing concept, "private law". In the Middle Ages both spheres were still substantially undivided. It follows that a definition of public law for this period can be achieved only by studying certain individual institutions. Included among these are the "leges fundamentales" of the Holy Roman Empire. For the Empire's complex structure these constituted a foundation of monarchical statehood which had the character of constitutional law. For the historian, therefore, the concepts of "leges fundamentales", "ius publicum", "constitution", "state", and "contract" must be investigated in order to follow the lines of continuity in public law back into the Middle Ages. The starting point of such a study is the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries, when the "ius publicum" became an independent discipline at German universities.