Legal fanaticism in the early modern era? The case of Hans Kohlhase

Abstract

The study reconstructs the story of a famous 16th-century legal dispute in the Holy Roman Empire, based on sources that are not always clear: Hans Kohlhase, a citizen of Berlin, declared a private battle against an entire country, the Saxon Electorate, for his inadequately redressed legal grievances. Behind the story of this legal dispute is the intriguing question of where, in constitutional history, the boundary lay between the medieval legal order, which recognised the self-power as a legitimate means, and the modern age, which sought to implement a state monopoly on the use of force.