Provisional Programme: Proclaiming, Affixing, Distributing: Disseminating the Law in Early Modern Europe
The 2nd COMLAWEU Conference, Tuesday 5 – Wednesday 6 May 2026
Old Class Library, St John’s House, 69-71 South Street, St Andrews, KY16 9QW
Tuesday 5 May
08:45-09:15 Registration
09:15-09:30 Welcome and opening
09:30-11:00 Panel 1: Targeted Dissemination and Distribution of the Law (Chair: Arthur der Weduwen)
- Barnaby Cullen, University of St Andrews: ‘The Diverse Dissemination of Ordinances in the Duchy of Pomerania, 1600-1750’
- Laura Skouvig, University of Copenhagen: ‘Proclaiming reform: The distribution of ordinances in Denmark, 1769-1799’
- Demi van Breukelen, University of St Andrews: ‘Communicating and enforcing the law through administrative print: Levying import and export taxes in the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic’
11:00-11:30 Break
11:30-12:30 Panel 2: The Post and Rural Dissemination (Chair: Barnaby Cullen)
- Xevi Camprubí, Autonomous University of Barcelona: ‘Printing and mail: the combination that ensured governance in Early Modern Catalonia’
- Gina Dahl, University of Bergen: ‘Law in circulation: How legal knowledge reached the Norwegian people, 1600-1800’
12:30-14:00 Lunch
14:00-15:30 Panel 3: Status, Activities and Social Lives of the Town Crier (Chair: Laura Incollingo)
- Christophe Gillain, University of St Andrews: ‘Who can proclaim the law? Jurisdictional conflict and the town crier in early modern France’
- Chloe Akers-Brewer, University of St Andrews: ‘More than Law: Town Criers as Undertakers in Early Modern France’
- Marco Francalanci, I Tatti – Harvard University: ‘Controlling the Voice of the Law: Power, Kinship, and the Social Role of Milan’s Town Criers in the Sixteenth Century’
15:30-16:00 Break
16:00-17:00 Panel 4: Clergy and State (Chair: Zina Gharakhani)
- Renaud Adam, University of Liège: ‘Disseminating the Law in the Prince-Bishopric of Liège during the Early Modern Period’
- Josef Pauser, University of Vienna: ‘On the promulgation of laws in the Austrian hereditary lands, primarily in the 18th century’
18:45 Conference dinner, Hotel du Vin
Wednesday 6 May
09:15-10:45 Panel 5: Oratory, town criers and performance (Chair: Christophe Gillain)
- Stephen Milner, University of Manchester: ‘Protesting Justice: legal precepts and public oratory in late medieval and Renaissance Florence’
- Laura Incollingo, University of St Andrews: ‘Tracking the town crier: An excursus on the various traces of town criers’ activities across Italian archives’
- Tiéphaine Thomason, University of Cambridge: ‘‘À haute et intelligible voix?’: Speaking the Law Across Language Barriers in Eighteenth-Century Nantes, c. 1690-1750’
10:45-11:15 Break
11:15-12:15 Panel 6: Royal Dissemination (Chair: Paweł Pietrowcew)
- Zina Gharakhani, University of St Andrews: ‘Trust, Control, and Communication: Methods of distributing and enforcing the law by the Viennese Chancellery in the Kingdoms of Hungary and Bohemia, c. 1526-1618’
- Marta Onyskiv, I.Krypiakevych Institute of Ukrainian Studies: ‘Royal universales as a means of disseminating law within the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth territories’
12:15-13:30 Lunch
13:30-15:00 Panel 7: Conflict and Contention (Chair: Arthur der Weduwen)
- Jason Peacey, University College London: ‘Questionable authority: complex and contested ‘proclamations’ in seventeenth-century England’
- Tristan Griffin, Università della Valle d’Aosta: ‘The promulgation of law and the problem of local rule in the British Civil Wars’
- Matthías Ólafsson, Trinity College Dublin: ‘Miscommunicating the Law in the Danish Oldenburg Empire: Disinformation and Revolt in 1760s Bergen and Bornholm’
15:00-15:30 Break
15:30-16:30 Panel 8: Reception and Response (Chair: Demi van Breukelen)
- Chris R. Kyle, Syracuse University: ‘National Problems and Local Responses: Proclamations, Print, and Ephemera in Cambridge in the Early Seventeenth Century’
- Damir Sütő, Centre for Protestant Studies Gáspár Károli Subotica: ‘From Draft to Constitutional Convention: Circulation, Consultation, and Promulgation of the 1573 Warsaw Confederation in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth’
16:30-17:00 Concluding roundtable
19:00 Conference dinner, Tailend Restaurant