Last year, to mark the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower Compact, I wrote a post on this blog about the Compact’s origins and legacy in early American history. In that post, I wrote that the Compact served as a place-holder to acknowledge that the colonists were operating outside the region of North America that their …
A few months ago, I highlighted on this blog two medieval manuscripts that the Law Library recently acquired. In this post, I would like to announce the acquisition of another new addition to the Law Library’s growing collection of medieval manuscripts, a remarkable 15th-century manuscript of L’Arbre des Batailles (The Tree of Battles) by the …
This week, 501 years ago, between November 7 and 10, 1520, about one hundred people were executed in the town square in Stockholm, Sweden, in what became known as the Stockholm Bloodbath. A few days earlier, on November 4, 1520, King Christian II of Denmark, was crowned king of Sweden in Stockholm Cathedral. He was …
The following is a guest post by Annie Ross, an intern with the Digital Resources Division of the Law Library of Congress. She is a current student of political science and international studies at Northwestern University. The pigeon is often thought of as nothing more than a city pest. Given their penchant for carrying germs …
Today is the 806th anniversary of the day King John of England committed to undertake the reforms that were enumerated in Magna Carta. King John granted Magna Carta to his barons on June 15, 1215, in order to halt their rebellion and to regain their support for his leadership. While Magna Carta was a document …
The following is a guest post by Eliza Friend, who served as a spring 2021 remote intern transcribing and researching documents in the Herencia: Centuries of Spanish Legal Documents crowdsourcing campaign at the Law Library of Congress. As I have completed the Herencia Crowdsourcing Campaign Internship and reviewed documents that span a variety of subjects and languages, a …
On January 28, 2021, Foreign Law Specialist Nicolas Boring discussed the Napoleonic Code’s history, evolution, and legacy in an installment of the Law Library of Congress’ foreign and comparative law webinar series. The webinar discussed the prehistory of the French Civil Code, its drafting and adoption, its contents, and the history of its immense influence …