Wiesław Litewski

Wiesław Litewski (born May 17, 1933 in Kartuzy , † January 24, 2004 in Cracow ) was a Polish legal scholar , legal historian and professor at the Jagiellonian University in Cracow.

Life

Litewski comes from a noble family on his father's side, his father Bruno was a bank director. After the war, the family finally moved to Kraków, after the father had already taken up a new position there in 1939. In 1950 Litewski graduated from high school in Cracow and in the same year began studying law at the Jagiellonian University located there. In 1954 he finished his studies with a Roman legal thesis on the writings of Szymon Starowolski . He then completed his legal clerkship in Katowice and passed his judge's examination in 1955, after which he worked briefly as a court assessor in Miechów . From 1956 Litewski worked initially as an assistant, later as an adjunct and lecturer at the Chair of Roman Law in Krakow. Litewski received his doctorate there in 1963 with a thesis on Roman law. iur., two years later he completed his habilitation. From 1978 he held the chair for Roman law in Cracow as a full professor and was head of the institute for legal history there from 1984 to 1991.

Litewski's research focus was on private Roman law and in particular on the history of the Roman civil process. He was considered one of the leading experts in questions of the Roman cognitive method . In addition, he also researched the Roman Code of Obligations, especially the connection between material and procedural law. Special mention should be made of his work on loan, order and sea loan. He expanded his studies on procedural law to include the Middle Ages and canon law. Towards the end of his life, Litewski also devoted himself to the Roman criminal process and published the first exhaustive treatise on the subject, published in Polish. Furthermore, Litewski's interests, caused also by his origins, were also on general German, especially Prussian, history.

Works (selection)

• Beneficium competentiae w prawie rzymskim (Beneficium competentiae in Roman law) . Volterra, Milan 1971 (dissertation).
• Wybrane zagadnienia rzymskiej apelacji w sprawach cywilnych (The Roman appellation in civil matters) . University Press, Cracow 1967 (post-doctoral thesis).
• Studies on safekeeping in Roman law . Naukowe, Warsaw 1978.
• Land law of the Duchy of Prussia from 1620 . Naukowe, Warsaw 1987.
• The Roman canon civil trial according to the older ordines iudiciarii . University Press, Cracow 1999.
• Jurysprudencja rzymska (The Roman Jurisprudence) . Krakow 2000.
• Rzymskie prawo prywatne . 5th edition. Warsaw 2003.

literature

• Obituary by Jarosław Reszczyński , in: Journal of the Savigny Foundation for Legal History , Romance Studies Department. 2005, pp. 459-465.

Web links

• Litewski at the Chair of Roman Law at the University of Krakow