Funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), Academic Natural Law in Absolutist Denmark is a history of academic natural law and its intellectual and practical significance in the kingdom of Denmark-Norway c. 1690-1773. From the 1690s, natural law was established as an academic discipline at the University of Copenhagen, with significant links to Halle, leading to an increase in lectures and publications in the subject. In practical terms, natural law was used to justify the absolutist monarchy, its domestic reforms, and overseas colonialism. The project investigates the full extent of academic teaching of natural law in Denmark-Norway c. 1690-1773, engaging with a wide range of printed and manuscript sources, from student notes over printed works to administrative correspondence.
Related publications
“Henrik (Heinrich) Weghorst”, in Efterslæt – festskrift til Sebastian Olden-Jørgensen, eds. Kristoffer Schmidt and Jes Fabricius Møller (København: Den danske Historiske Forening 2024), pp. 270-280.
“Fra Hemmingsen til Kofod Ancher: Naturrettens betydning for kirkeretten i Danmark”, in Præstens tjenstlige forpligtelser. Kirkerettens retskilder – fra reformationen til nu, eds. Lisbet Christoffersen, Martin Martensen-Larsen, and Lars Chr. Kjærgaard. Kirkeretsantologi 2023 (København: Eksistensen Akademisk for Selskab for Kirkeret, 2023), pp. 221–38.
“Libertas philosophandi and natural law in early eighteenth-century Denmark-Norway”, Intellectual History Review 30, no. 2 (2020), pp. 209-231. 10.1080/17496977.2019.1643601
“Serving Danish Foreign Policy: Professor Hojer’s 1735 De eo quod iure belli licet in minores”, in The Law of Nations and Natural Law, 1625-1850, ed. Simone Zurbuchen (Brill, 2019), pp. 39–59. 10.1163/9789004384200_004
“Contests about Natural Law in Early Enlightenment Copenhagen”, History of European Ideas 42, no. 8 (2016), pp. 1027–41. 10.1080/01916599.2016.1182045
Related presentations
07.09.2023 “Naturretten i Danmark 1800–1850: Undervisningen ved Københavns universitet”. Naturrett etter 1814 – en oversett tradisjon? Seminar at the Faculty of Law, University of Bergen.
07.03.2024 “Chr. L. Scheidt’s Pufendorf-lectures in Copenhagen 1740-42”, Pufendorf across the Sound – in Teaching and Practice. Faculty of Law, Lund University.
03.05.2023 “Natural Law, History, and Legitimating Danish Absolutism”, Presentation of natural law projects at Forschungszentrum Gotha.
10.02.2023 “The Library of Andreas Hojer (1690-1739)”. Enlightened Libraries: Natural Law Collections and their Role in the Intellectual Infrastructure between Lund, Copenhagen and Northern Germany 1650-1800. Workshop of Natural Law 1625-1850. An International Research Project. Saxo Institute, University of Copenhagen.
17.01.2023 “Academic Natural Law in Absolutist Denmark c. 1690-1773: Professionalisation and Politics”. Natural Law at the Universities of Halle, Greifswald, Rostock, Kiel and Copenhagen. Projects coordinated by the International Network on “Natural Law 1625-1850”. Workshop at Interdisziplinäre Zentrum für die Erforschung der Europäischen Aufklärung (IZEA), Halle.
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