Law and the end of empire 2: AD 800-1150

Thanks to its revival in the law school of Bologna in the 1100s, the concepts and principles of Roman law remain an important component of the common European heritage: they underlie the civil codes of all European countries apart from England, Wales, and Ireland. Following on from the first phase of Law and the End of Empire, which examined the period from c. AD 500 to 800, the main objective of the research project is to write the history of Roman law from Charlemagne to the juristic revival of the twelfth century, serving scholars of legal history, institutional and social history, and ecclesiastical (canon) law.

The project aims (1) to offer a new and better analysis of a crucial period in the early history of European legal culture; (2) to provide a stimulus to further research, not only through the provision of an up-to-date analytical account in print, but also (i) an on-line database documenting the source material and the complexity of its transmission, (ii) a web-portal and guide to the various electronic resources already available, and (iii) on-line textual material of our own creation, such as editions and/or translations where they are not already easily accessible (see www.ucl.ac.uk/history2/volterra for the current portal and interrogable databases); (3) to engage a wider audience in thinking about shared aspects of the European past: the first phase of the project has been very successful in bringing together research in different national and intellectual traditions.

Getting the early history of Roman law in Europe right is important in the present intellectual and political context: just as Hart, drawing on the English common law, produced in The Concept of Law a framework for understanding the nature of Roman law, so Birks in English Private Law used the categories of Roman law to organise English material. The enhancement of such intellectual interchange is clearly central to the contemporary development of European law.

We envisage the societal and economic impact of our research project principally being felt in the enhancement of creative output, specifically through the enhancement of the knowledge economy and provision of support for the creative and cultural industries. For, as well as the immediate academic beneficiaries, the beneficiaries of the outputs of the project will include (i) professionals working in public engagement activities in museums and galleries and (ii) the educated general public more widely.

Academics and curators will benefit from straightforward access to new scholarly resources that they may re-use freely for their own purposes. Members of the interested general public will benefit from a general enrichment of the information environment and so directly promoting a deepening of their understanding of our cultural heritage, specifically in terms of the role of Roman law in European culture.

A combination of strategies will be employed in order to engage users and beneficiaries and increase the likelihood of impact. Within the academic sphere, we will work through the appropriate channels to reach the various types of audience and beneficiary (see above).

Museum and gallery professionals as well as the wider public will only benefit from our research if aware of it. Accordingly we recognise the need to maximise impact through publicity. Our audience outside the academic community may be engaged through the exploitation of Web 2.0 social networking initiatives (e.g. Facebook). Awareness will be raised by the consistent employment of the strong Projet Volterra brand image to be developed and disseminated on our publicity materials.

We will collaborate with UCL's and the AHRC's Media Relations teams, as and when the opportunity presents, to attract the attention of the wider interested general public through press releases and Podcasts, as successfully achieved with the Codex Gregorianus story, which was picked up by local, national, and international media.

Both academic and general audiences will be targeted by a public lecture, given by a high profile invited speaker, to mark the culmination of the project in its fifth year.