An Elegant Legal Education: The Studies of Charles Binning, a Scottish Pupil of Cornelis van Eck

Karen Baston, John W. Cairns

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

This article considers the influence of legal education based on the Dutch tradition of legal humanism on a Scottish student of the late seventeenth-century. An annotated textbook retained by Charles Binning contains notes from his studies with the Utrecht professor Cornelis van Eck and provides evidence for Van Eck’s teaching practices. Their education abroad equipped Scottish legal students for the professional, intellectual and cultural lives they would lead when they returned home. Exposure to the ideas contained in the books they studied and their relationships with the Continental learned gave Scottish scholars admission into the international Republic of Letters. This had significance for the development of the Scottish Enlightenment.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)179-201
JournalThe Legal History Review
Volume83
Issue number1-2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jun 2015

Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)

  • Scottish law students
  • humanism
  • Cornelis van Eck
  • Charles Binning
  • Principia juris civilis
  • legal textbooks
  • book collecting
  • witchcraft
  • Scottish legal profession

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