Rechtsgeschichte und Rechtsvergleichung um 1900 Die Geschichte einer anderen »Emanzipation durch Auseinanderdenken«

The Emancipation of Comparative Law from Legal History Around 1900 For most of the 19th century, the academic discipline of comparative law was perceived to be just a variant of legal history. The idea of a »universal jurisprudence« required a multi-dimensional comparison of the laws of all countries at all times in order to infer general laws of legal development. Later, the notion of comparative law also comprised the study of contemporary foreign laws with a view to domestic law reform or legal unification. It was only around the turn of the century that the latter conception of comparative law prevailed and the close link with legal history was broken. The article traces the relationship between the two disciplines throughout the 19th century and sketches the reasons for the emancipation of comparative law.