Return of a Ghost

Abstract

As there are hardly any regulations on slavery to be found in early modern German positive law, the impression prevails until today that slave status did not exist in the Old Empire. In such cases, however, Roman law was regularly used as a subsidiary legal source. By studying the plethora of early modern commentaries on the Corpus iuris civilis, which adapted ancient law to contemporary needs, a wholly different picture emerges: Not only did slave status exist as a legal concept and was applied in practice, but by selecting, interpreting, and commenting on it, early modern jurists shaped and reshaped its concrete appearance. Controversies and mainstream positions thus become tangible, as do more profound shifts from religious toward racial alterity as criteria for enslaveability.