Inaugural lecture by Helle Vogt: Regulating the private: Legal history between private and public in medieval and early modern times

Inaugural lecture on the occasion of Professor Helle Vogt’s commencement of employment as Professor in Legal History.

Why in early modern Denmark could the sight of a woman with loose hair infuriate God, or a bridal veil shock respectable citizens, and why did the authorities ban wine drinking at weddings when it was perfectly in order to get drunk on schnapps? And in the medieval period, why would some choose not to follow the letter of the law and receive a large compensation for a slain kinsman but instead insist on humiliating the killer by public penance?

Professor Helle Vogt

These and other examples of the interplay between private and public will frame the lecture, which is ultimately concerned with the contribution that the concept of privacy can make to research in legal history. More specifically, I shall be asking how regulations of sexual conduct, festive cultures and codes of Dispute settlement, norms of honour, and conventions of celebrating and dressing were observed privately and publically in medieval and early modern Denmark.

Everyone is welcome, but registration is required.

Programme:
15.30 - 15.40 Welcome by dean Jacob Graff Nielsen, Faculty of Law, UCPH
15.40 - 16.30 Regulating the private: Legal history between private and public in medieval and early modern times by professor Helle Vogt
16.30 - 17.30 Reception outside the auditorium.

See The Faculty of Law for more information.