Lukas Bothe

Research Project B10

Research Associate

Address

Binger Straße 40
Room 010
14197 Berlin

Telephone

Lukas studied History and English Studies in Berlin and Warwick from 2002-2009. Since 2010 he has been a research associate at the Collaborative Research Centre SFB 700 – Governance in Areas of Limited Statehood at Freie Universität Berlin. He has been working in the research project led by Stefan Esders ‘Legal Security and Order as Joint Tasks of Secular and Church Institutions (8th-11th centuries)’; formerly ‘Institutions and Modi of Governance in the Transition from Ancient to Medieval Statehood: Law, Security and Order in Early Medieval Kingdoms’.

Lukas works on a dissertation project on the ‘Functionality and Dysfunctionality of Early Medieval Monetary Fines’. He asks why Frankish legislators in particular relied almost exclusively on monetary fines to sanction wrongs. At this monetary fines appear as the most appropriate tool to enable peaceful conflict settlement under circumstances of a reduced stately steering intention, whereas capital penalties involved the danger for both judge and executioner to become a party to the dispute. Lukas interprets the enormously high fines in the Frankish laws, from which the royal treasury profited as much as the victim’s family, as a system deliberately setting incentives for judicial conflict solution, thus cushioning the consequences of a reduced degree of statehood following the end of the Roman Empire in the West.

Courses

WS 2017/18	Einführung in das Studium der mittelalterlichen Geschichte: Gottes- und Landfrieden zwischen Kontinuität und Wandel in der mittelalterlichen Rechtsgeschichte (Friedrich-Meinecke-Institut, Freie Universität Berlin).
WS 2011/12	‚Pax et iustitia‘: Die Wahrung des Friedens als zentrales Problem mittelalterlichen Rechts. (Friedrich-Meinecke-Institut, Freie Universität Berlin).

Publications

2018

From Subordination to Integration: Romans in Frankish Law, in: Transformations of Romanness. Early Medieval Regions and Identities, edited by Walther Pohl / Clemens Gantner / Cinzia Grifoni / Marianne Pollheimer-Mohaupt, Berlin: DeGruyter 2018 (Millenium Studien / Millenium Studies 71), S. 345-368.

2013

Legitimitätsressourcen im Übergang von antiker zu mittelalterlicher Staatlichkeit. Zwei Perspektiven auf postimperiale Governance (together with Kai Grundmann). SFB-Governance Working Paper Series Nr. 44, DFG Sonderforschungsbereich 700, Berlin 2013.

Rezension von Lisi Oliver, The Body Legal in Barbarian Law, Toronto 2011. In: Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte. Germanistische Abteilung 130 (2013), S. 613-615.

submitted

Les lois des Alamans, in: Sylvie Joye / Marcelo Cândido da Silva / Bruno Dumézil (Ed.), Les lois barbares, under contract with Presses Universitaires de Rennes.

Les lois des Thuringiens, in: Sylvie Joye / Marcelo Cândido da Silva / Bruno Dumézil (Ed.), Les lois barbares, under contract with Presses Universitaires de Rennes.

Les lois des Saxons (together with Stefan Esders), in: Sylvie Joye / Marcelo Cândido da Silva / Bruno Dumézil (Ed.), Les lois barbares, under contract with Presses Universitaires de Rennes.

Mediterranean Homesick Blues: Human Trafficking in the Merovingian Leges, in: Merovingian Kingdoms and the Mediterranean World: Revisiting the Sources, edited by Pia Bockius, Stefan Esders, Yitzak Hen and Tamar Rotman, under contract with Bloomsbury Academic.

Triplice Wergeldum: Social and Functional Status in the Lex Ribuaria, in: Wergild, Compensation and Penance. The Monetary Logic of Early Medieval Conflict Resolution, edited by Lukas Bothe, Stefan Esders and Han Nijdam, under contract with Brill (will be published in the series Medieval Law and its Practice).

Conference Contributions

2018	„Eine in die Vergangenheit gerichtete Wahrsagung? Die Lex Ribuaria als Quelle mantischer Praktiken”, 18. April 2018, Workshop: Rechtssammlungen als Quellen mantischer Praktiken, FAU Nürnberg Erlangen (17.-18. April 2018). “From Debt to Sin? Wergild Liability and the Evolution of Individual Guilt in Frankish Law (6^th-9^th century)”, 13. January 2018, International Conference: Law and Legal Agreements (600-1250), Cambridge University 12-13 January 2018 (Voices of Law: Language, Text and Practice. Funded by the Leverhulme Trust).
2017	*“Theodulf of Orleans on mercy and punishment and the penal agenda of the Lex Ribauria”*, Thursday 06 July 2017, Leeds International Medieval Congress (03-06 July 2017).
2015	“Self-Commitment and Self-Governance in the Peace of God- Movement”, Monday 06 July 2015, Leeds International Medieval Congress (06-09 July 2015).
2014	“Triplice Weregildum: Social and Functional Status in the Lex Ripuaria”, @ International Conference: Wergild, Compensation and Penance. The Monetary Logic of Early Medieval Conflict Resolution, 29-30 September, FU Berlin. “Regulating Vengeance: How to Maintain the Rule of Law in Merovingian Gaul”, Wednesday 09 July 2014, The International Medieval Congress, Leeds (07-10 July 2014).
2013	“Between Discrimination and Legal Pluralism: Romans in Frankish Law”, International Conference: The Transformation of Romanness. Regions & Identities, 29-31 October 2013, The Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna. “Let 'Em Pay or Hang 'Em High? Tackling Theft and Robbery in Merovingian Legal Sources”, Tuesday 2 July 2013, The International Medieval Congress, Leeds (01-04 July 2013). „Die Sanktionierung des Diebstahls in der Lex Ribuaria“, Workshop: Die Leges barbarorum im fränkischen Frühmittelalter, 03.-04. Mai 2013, SFB 700, Freie Universität Berlin.
2012	“Leges und Wergelder: Zur Funktionalität und Dysfunktionalität frühmittelalterlicher Geldstrafen“, @ Normative Konstruktion und Soziale Praxis im Merowingerreich, 26.-27. Oktober 2012, Historisches Seminar, Universität Zürich. *“Colonus, civis, or conviva regis: Fuzzy Concepts of the homo Romanus* and his Wergild in the Frankish leges”, Wednesday 11 July 2012, The International Medieval Congress, Leeds (09-12 July 2012).
2011	*“'Sed tamen propter pacis studium tremisse conponat': Wergild and Social Status in the Lex Ribuaria”,*Thursday 14 July 2011, The International Medieval Congress, Leeds (11-14 July 2011).

Organisation of International Conferences

2016	"Making Sense of the Oath in Late Antiquity and the Earlier Middle Ages. Religious Act, Social Bond, Holy Sacrament", 15-17 September, Freie Universität Berlin (gemeinsam mit Stefan Esders und Gerda Heydemann).
2014	“Wergild, Compensation and Penance. The Monetary Logic of Early Medieval Conflict Resolution”, 29-30 September 2014, Freie Universität Berlin, SFB 700 (together with Stefan Esders and Han Nijdam, Fryske Akademy, Leeuwarden)
2013	*„Die leges barbarorum* im fränkischen Frühmittelalter“**, 3.-4. Mai 2013, Freie Universität Berlin, SFB 700 (together with Magali Coumert, Université de Bretagne Occidentale, Brest)