Stephan Kuttner in Amerika 1940–1964: Grundlegung Der Modernen Historisch-Kanonistischen Forschung by Andreas Hetzenecker

Abstract

usually through university study and practical experience. They also had to make a solemn “public promise that they would observe some basic rules of legal ethics and conduct in their relationship with the courts and with their clients” (p. 342). All of this is presented in great detail, largely based on primary sources. The different groups of legal professionals were not closed, but allowed individuals to pass from one group to another . Advocates, proctors as well as judges—the latter were appointed by ecclesiastical or imperial authority—often, though not always accumulated wealth and fame; their ethical obligations required that they represent poor clients free of charge. Uta-Renate Blumenthal Professor emerita Department of History The Catholic University of America STEPHAN KUTTNER IN AMERIKA 1940–1964: GRUNDLEGUNG DER MODERNEN HISTORISCH-KANONISTISCHEN FORSCHUNG by Andreas Hetzenecker. Schriften zur Rechtsgeschichte, 133. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2007. For those of us who teach at The Catholic University of America, this book is not a happy story. Stephan Kuttner came toAmerica on a Vatican passport in 1940. Catholic University extended him an academic position . He remained at the university until he left for Yale University in 1964, where he became the T. Lawrason Riggs Professor of Roman Catholic Studies. In 1969, Kuttner leftYale to become the Director of the Robbins Canon Law Collection at Berkeley Law School, the University of California. During his time at Catholic University, Kuttner had become the center of the world of medieval legal historians. He founded the journal Traditio in 1943, and the Institute of Medieval Canon Law in 1955 at Catholic University, now the Stephan Kuttner Institute of Medieval Canon Law and housed in the law school of the University of Munich . From 1955 to 1970, a final section of Traditio was devoted to a report on the activities of the Institute. In 1971 Kuttner left Traditio and founded the Bulletin of Medieval Canon Law now published with the support of the School of Canon Law at Catholic University. Kuttner was also the driving organizational force behind the inception of quadrennial book reviews 235 236 the jurist international congresses that began to meet alternatingly on both sides of the Atlantic in the late 1950’s. His congresses have survived his death. The Thirteenth Congress met in Esztergom, Hungary in 2008; The Fourteenth will convene in Toronto in 2012. The Proceedings of these congresses have been published by the Vatican Library and now occupy almost two feet of shelf in major university libraries. Kuttner’s scholarly and academic career was a spectacular success. His work and the “institutions” that he founded have survived him (he died eerily presciently on August 12th, the first day of the Tenth International Congress held in Syracuse, New York in 1996). The congresses will endure, Deo volente, well into the twenty-first century. This fine book, a dissertation accepted by the Ludwigs-Maximilians-Universität München under the direction of Kuttner’s successor as President of the Stephan Kuttner Institute of Medieval Canon Law in Munich, relates the story of Kuttner’s days at Catholic University in great detail. Hetzenecker gives us: a list of canon law dissertations that Kuttner supervised, his activities in the School of Canon Law, a detailed description of Kuttner ’s organization of the Salvatore Riccobono Seminar, a history of the founding of the Institute of Medieval Canon Law, his establishment of the journals Traditio and Seminar, his seminars, lectures, and teaching at other universities, and finally the recognition of his accomplishments by other scholarly organizations and universities. So where is the rub? Professor John Lynch had already outlined some of the story in this journal in 1990 (vol. 50, pp. 2–57). The administration at Catholic University did not recognize Kuttner’s importance and brilliance and did not support his work. In fact what Kuttner accomplished in Washington was in large part in spite of the university. Presidents at Catholic University, particularly Patrick J. McCormick and William J. McDonald, had narrow horizons and did not support Kuttner and his Institute . On the contrary they hindered and obstructed them. Hetzenecker draws the dreary conclusion (pp. 252–254) that “his position at the Catholic University of America was a significant encumbrance...