Law and Literature. An Interdisciplinary Exploration of Medieval Texts

Edité par Ignazio Alessi et Gavino Scala

Throughout history, law and literature have always been in constant dialogue, sharing significant connections and exerting mutual influences. Both are artificial creations, products of human imagination that use language and metaphors to build meanings and shape the world around us. In the Middle Ages, the proximity of these two genres is even more pronounced. This is not only because many literary figures were also jurists, but also because medieval legal texts can be classified as a distinct literary genre known as ‘legal literature’. Additionally, medieval jurists did not hesitate to draw upon literary texts, understood as genuine sources of law (‘auctoritates morales’), to fill gaps in their legal knowledge.

The contributions collected in this volume examine precisely this intersection between law and literature in medieval literary and legal texts. The volume follows four axes: law in literature, law as literature, literature in law, and literature as Law. The volume aims to raise awareness of the proximity of two apparently distant worlds and to provide a perspective for interdisciplinary analysis that transcends traditional rigid barriers.

Brepols, Turhout 2026

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