Custom and Law in Central Europe by Martyn s> Rady (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS I39 victim was a brother of the accused. A rapidly rising population, a growing shortage of land to farm, and tensions occasioned by fraternalconflicts over the division of responsibilitieswithin the extended family that was characteristic of the region are seen as the main causes for the high level of fratricide, and other inter-familialviolence. Koskivirtaconcludes that 'when the growth in the number of farms and farming partners reaches its final bounds, the price of a family model that guaranteed a flexible division of resourceswas fratricide',which suggestsan element of calculationnot entirelysupportedby the evidence. Like Ylikangas,she places great importance on the fact that a conviction requiredthe concurringtestimoniesof two competent eyewitnesses or the confession of the accused; the unwillingnessof the accused to confess and the frequentlackof eyewitnessesmeant that manypatentlyguiltypersons escaped punishment. Weakcontrol and the lack of penal certaintyultimately led to crimes inspiredby self-interest;contractkillings,for example, of which a number are described in detail here. Koskivirtahas the uncommon ability of being able to blend theoreticalanalysisand narrative;her summariesof the cases brought to court are riveting reading, but they also buttress her arguments. The one major reservation would be that she does not really succeed in explainingsatisfactorilythe significantdifferencein homicide rates within eastern Finland. One would also like to have known more about possible religiousor ethnic tensions in mixed communities such as Ilomantsi, where the homicide rate per year per IOO,OOO inhabitantsduring the period under review was I2.8 (and reached a peak of I8.2 between I748 and I767). But this is in many ways a fascinatingstudy of a ruralsociety in crisis,which nicely complements the earlierwork of Ylikangason southern Ostrobothnia, that other area of Finlandin which homicide ratesrocketedin the 179os, and where the growthin the numbersof the landlesspopulationwas most rapid. School ofSlavonic andEastEuropean Studies DAVID KIRBY University College London Rady, Martyn (ed.). Custom andLawin Central Europe. With an Introductionby JAnosM. Bak. Centre for European Legal Studies Occasional Paper, 6. Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, 2003, vii + ii 6 pp. Notes. Select index. fio.oo (paperback). THEworks of legal historians help us to understand modern law and legal cultures. Today, however, the process of Europeanization seems to give an added legal significance to historical legal scholarship in East European countries. Studiesin comparativelaw are needed. We are now confrontedby the difficult problem of re-establishing a European legal culture. In this respect, Stephan Werboczy's Tripartitum Opus Juris Consuetudinarii InclytiRegni Hungariae is not merely a local work,but one of much greatersignificance. Furthermore, for persons interested in creating a national identity from modern history, a discussion of this work is certainly valuable. Present-day Hungarian school children already learn about the Tripartitum, including its role in later centuries. The practical influence of the Tripartitum lasted until I848, and it remained as a partial source of private law until the Second 140 SEER, 83, I, 2005 WorldWar.It gave the firstreasoned basisto the theory of 'the Holy Crown', which explainsthe identityof the Hungariannation, andwhich has been used on variouspolitical stagesup untiltoday. In contrast to the high quality of the Tripartitum as a readily available historical source, it is difficult to find detailed commentaries, especially updatedmulti-lingualones, on theworkitself.Therefore,thisvolumepromises to be eye-opening, a unique opportunity to study the Tripartitum and Hungarian legal culture. The volume is a collection of papers delivered at a conference held in Cambridge in April 2003 under the title, 'Werboczy, Custom and Hungarian Law'. As the preface shows, the conference formed part of a much larger, continuing project, which aims to publish an English language translationand critical edition of the Tripartitum. In addition to the introduction by Janos Bak, there are seven contributions in all. The contributors offer a wide variety of perspectives owing to their varied disciplinesand countriesof origin. Europeanlegal historiansmay be interestedin the followingquestion:does the Tripartitum follow the legal methods ofJustinian's Corpus IurisCivilis, which was regarded, next to Canon Law, as the most dominant authoritativelegal source over the European continent? Or rather, is it one of the products of regional common law, like the German Sachsenspiegel, the French Coutumes de Beauvaisis, or similartreatisesin England?In the firstworkshop in 200I, the symposiasts established that 'the traditional assessment of the "Romanist...