Swiss Legal History

As the first legal history of Switzerland in English, this seminal work presents the legal development in the territory of today's Switzerland. Until 1798, the Swiss Confederation consisted of a conglomerate of around 50 local authorities with different constitutional statuses. The number of legislative jurisdictions was even greater; each territory, however small, had its own legal system before 1798. In the 19th century, legal unity was initially created within the framework of cantonal law an