Sacred Rules, Secular Revelations: The Conceptions of Rights in Pre-Modern Europe

This project explores the conception of human rights - or, more precisely, their medieval equivalents - in the dialogues and disputes of lawyer-theologians of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. By exploring canon law and Roman law commentaries, theological treatises, liturgical texts, and personal writings produced during the cultural and intellectual efflorescence in Western medieval Europe called the twelfth-century renaissance , this interdisciplinary project traces the emergence of the notion of law from religion and ethics, with a particular focus on the rights of individuals.