Subject Guides: Law: Legal History

Legal history resources

Nationell arkivdatabas (NAD) - Swedish National Archives Database This link opens in a new window
NAD is a database containing information on archives in Sweden and provides a national registry of records creators with references to archives, a registry of archival institutions with contact information and complemental databases for topographical classification and administrative history.

Swedish Hand Press Publications
Subset of the Swedish national library catalogue Libris. Swedish bibliography 1600-1829 and Swedish Official Publications until 1833 (digitization is in progress ).

Legislation

A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation
U.S. Congressional documents and debates 1774-1875. Including older American legislation (Statutes at large) and preparatory work.
Annotated Justinian Code
Annotated Justinian Code and Justinian Novels.
Avalon Project: Documents in law, history and diplomacy
A selection of historical documents from Ancient times onwards.
Corpus Iuris Civilis – the Ames Foundation
Digitalized version of the law collection Corpus Iuris Civilus.
Internet history sourcebooks
Collection of historical documents from Ancient times and onwards.
Oxford Historical Treaties (OHT)
Includes The Consolidated Treaty Series in full text, the only comprehensive collection of bilateral and multilateral treaties of all nations concluded from 1648 through 1919.
Primary sources on copyright
Digital archive of primary sources on copyright from the invention of the printing press (c. 1450) to the Berne Convention (1886) and beyond.
Repertorium utriusque iuris
Digitalized versions of the law collections Corpus Iuris Civilis and Corpus Iuris Canonici.

Printed publications

For older Swedish legislation, see the Swedish version of the guide.

The Dag Hammarskjöld and Law Library has some printed collections of older legislation, for example (on shelf 340.09) the Norwegian Frostatingslova and Gulatingslova (see also Norges gamle love, Carolina Library) as well as Law collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor by Roth, American legal history: cases and materials by Hall and Sammlung schweizerischer Rechtsquellen. In the closed stacks of the Dag Hammarskjöld and Law Library we also keep Lovtidende for Kongeriget Danmark (1882-1932) and Danmarks gamle love (see also Danmarks gamle landskabslove, Carolina Library). See also the bibliography Översikt över riksdagshandlingar samt författnings- och rättsfallssamlingar med särskild hänsyn till bestånden vid Sveriges offentliga bibliotek (including references to collections of parliamentary documents from different countries) by Frykholm.

Preparatory work

National Library - SOU
Digitised SOU (Government official reports) 1922-1999. Most of them are only available in Swedish, but some of them have a summary in English.

Printed publications

Swedish committee reports from 1815 and government bills from 1867 onwards can be found in the Dag Hammarskjöld and Law Library, all in Swedish. A large part of the legal history collections of the Uppsala University Library is kept at Carolina Rediviva.

For more information about Swedish materials, see the Swedish version of the guide.

See also the bibliography Översikt över riksdagshandlingar samt författnings- och rättsfallssamlingar med särskild hänsyn till bestånden vid Sveriges offentliga bibliotek (including references to collections of parliamentary documents from different countries) by Frykholm.

Case law

CommonLII – Commonwealth legal information institute
Including older English case law (English Reports, 1220-1873).
Old Bailey Online
The proceedings of the London criminal court, Old Bailey, 1674-1913 in digitized form.
Slaves and the Courts
Including material regarding slave trials, mainly in the U.S., 1740-1860.
Westlaw UK
Legal database with legislation, case-law and articles, mainly from the United Kingdom. When using Westlaw Uk for the first time, you need to type your name and email directly after logging in with your user-ID/student-ID.
Westlaw International
A collection of legal and regulatory information dealing with all aspects of law. Covers most areas of the world and also international organisations such as EU, United Nations, WTO and international tribunals.

Printed publications

You can find collections of Swedish case law from the 19th century onwards in the Dag Hammarskjöld and Law library, all in Swedish. For more detailed information, see the Swedish version of the guide.

Foreign case law collections in printed form:

Law reports (1865-) and All England law reports (1558-), American international law cases (from 1783 onwards), can be ordered from the closed stacks.
The Bloody register ("most remarkable trials", 1700-1764), The earliest English law reports (until 1289) and American legal history: cases and materials by Hall, can be ordered from the closed stacks.
Danish case law is published in Ugeskrift for retsvaesen (1867-, in Archive 2 of the Dag Hammarskjöld and Law library basement floor) and in Jydske domme og dokumenter 1440-1700 (can be ordered from the closed stacks).
Norsk retstidende (1836-2015), can be ordered from the closed stacks.
Entscheidungen des Reichsgerichts - Zivilsachen (former German supreme court, 1880-1914 available at the Carolina Library)

See also the bibliography Översikt över riksdagshandlingar samt författnings- och rättsfallssamlingar med särskild hänsyn till bestånden vid Sveriges offentliga bibliotek (including references to case law collections from different countries) by Frykholm.

Archival material

Older court documents are kept in the National Archives. To locate which archive keeps the relevant material, search the National Archives Database.

Literature

European Library
Catalogue including material from many research and national libraries of Europe.

HeinOnline This link opens in a new window
International legal database with a large number of international journals in full text. Also including some American legal sources, legal classics and the sections “Foreign and International Law Resources” and “Index to foreign legal periodicals”.
Legal Classics Library This link opens in a new window
More than 1,200 classic works on constitutional law and political science. Includes publications from authors like Joseph Story, Louis Brandeis, Benjamin N. Cardozo and Edwardo Coke.

E-books

DPLA/Europeana
Simultaneous search in the freely available digital archives Digital Pulic Library of America and Europeana.

Early European Books
Early European Books is a collection of electronically scanned facsimiles of early European literature, with the focus on European literature printed before 1700. The works are scanned in their entirety.
The first collection contains scanned books from Det Kongelige bibliotek (Royal Library) in Copenhagen, including their copies of Tycho Brahe’s works.
The second collection contains scanned books from the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze (National Central Library of Florence).
The third collection contains scanned books from Det Kongelige bibliotek (Royal Library) in Copenhagen, the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze (National Central Library of Florence), the Koninklijke Bibliotheek (National Library of the Netherlands) and The Wellcome Library (London).

Grotius Collection
Including links to works by and about Hugo Grotius (1583-1645).
Project Gutenberg
Freely available e-books, including some historical legal works.
Oxford Academic
Academic journals and books in many different subjects. A new platform that includes Oxford Scholarship Online and Oxford Handbooks Online.

More about older collections

Collections at Carolina Rediviva:

Early printed books & special collections

Manuscript collections

Some archival materials are only available at the National Archives (Riksarkivet).