Agrarrechtsgeschichte – ein konstitutiver Gegenstand der Erforschung landschaftsbezogener Rechtsgemeinschaften

Summary Ever since regional history has developed as an independent discipline alongside national/state history, the historical landscape has been seen independent of the boundaries of the 19th century. By elaborating the legal phenomena of a historical landscape, legal historians can also contribute substantially to the goals of historical regional studies. With his dissertation discussed here, Esser takes up the problem of the so-called ground release as part of the agrarian reforms or peasants’ liberation at the beginning of the 19th century, which, however, he examines only within the boundaries of one West German territory, the Duchy of Julich. Thus, he misses the opportunity to embed his subject in the larger framework of the landscape-based legal community of the Rhineland. Nevertheless, his account makes an important contribution to the study of land release as part of the agrarian reforms in Germany.