Political Bodies: Nature and Judicial Torture in the Middle Ages

PANATERI, DANIEL ALBERTO

Évora, Portugal

Conferencia; Lectures on Social Contract The Ius Resistendi and the Politics of Rupture; 2021

Universidade de Évora

This paper aims to analyze the relationship between the concept of nature and the language of Law. On the one hand, I will show how nature worked in the ?Roman Law?. On the other hand, taking this functioning, I will try to explain how the use of this juridical concept was readjusted during the Middle Ages. Although the difference in the functioning of the concept of nature in Rome and the Middle Ages is well known, I believe that the key point in my research involves understanding how these institutions and legal concepts functioned within juridical discourse, rather than the extent of their limitations. In summary, I intend to show that there was a linguistic rather than a conceptual adaptation of the concept of nature to discuss the (non-historical) foundation of institutions. To do so, I will take different texts from the classical and post-classical periods and compare them with what is outlined in the Siete Partidas (1256-1284). I will also take up some notions of the Common Law. The preferred element of analysis will be the use of nature within the institute of judicial torture. I hope to achieve a thorough vision of how Roman Law functioned in the very formation of the legal narrative complex during the 13th century.