During the current year, I have taken part in the November 2017 Conference ‘Shaping the Officer’ at the German Historical Institute – London and I am currently preparing his contribution to the conference proceedings: “Rural élites, communities and the bureaucratisation of justice in Italy (1150-1250)”. I have also finished a draft article, in which I reappraise the shaping function of practice in the early learned law of fiefs: The making of feudal customs. Social practice and the early feudal lawyers (1100-1250). I am also concluding a first draft of his monograph on law, custom and dispute-solving strategies in rural Italy in the 12th and 13th centuries.
I am also continuing to investigate André Gouron’s research on the interplay of practice and law by analysing a core body of compilations of short treatises, apparently collected for the use of court practitioners. The aim is to understand the logic underlying the selection of such texts and possibly investigate the identity of the manuscript owners and commitments. The manuscripts I am currently studying are: Berlin SB, Lat. 462; Troyes BM, 1317; Bologna, Collegio di Spagna, 73; Parma Bibl. Palat. 1227.