Summary

According to today’s knowledge of the history of penal law, the early modern penal legal order evolved from the early modern penal jurisprudence and from the historical process usually known as the “reception of Roman law”. According to Franz Wieacker, reception or re-adoption was not merely the simple adoption of sets of rules but involved the process of scientification. Wieacker regards scientification as rationalisation. However, the author of this article argues that it is doubtful whether the category of scientific is sufficient in order to describe clearly and convincingly the complex historical development of reception during the 12th-16th centuries.
The author examines the reception of Roman law in the late Medieval Ages. Then the concurrent reception of German law in East and Central Europe is scrutinised. The concept of reception in the late Medieval Ages is defined.
The article was first published in German in the collection K. Lüderssen (compiled by). Die Durchsetzung des öffentlichen Strafanspruchs. Systematisierung der Fragestellung. Köln, Weimar, Wien: Böhlau, 2002.