2.2 The call to Leipzig

In the first decades of the twentieth century, the Law Faculty at the University of Leipzig was one of the most or, in Koschaker’s words,^[96] the most prestigious Law Faculty in the whole of Germany.

The call to Leipzig was in part unexpected and even surprising for Koschaker: he had been appointed to such a prestigious university, despite his young age - as Koschaker was still only thirty-five - to a prestigious university, and what is more, he had the chair that had previously belonged to Strohal, who died in 1914.^[98] Stranger still, the Law Faculty offered Koschaker the Chair in both Roman law and German Civil law (Lehrstuhl für römisches und deutsches bürgerliches Recht), even though civil law was not part of his field of research.^[99] He pointed out that he had no intention of changing his branch of study from Roman law to civil law, but the faculty nonetheless acquiesced.^[100] There was quite a stir, as well as criticism surrounding the appointment of such a young scholar to Leipzig, considering as well that Koschaker did not have so many publications at the time and, in particular, only one on Roman law, his Habilitation monograph.^[101]

Koschaker could not, of course, refuse such a great opportunity, a true springboard to academic success, and moreover, he could again work with Mitteis.^[102]

The decision to move to Leipzig was one of the most significant in Koschaker’s life and, at the same time, the most satisfying. He wrote in his autobiography that the time in Leipzig, from 1915 to 1936, were the best years of his life.^[103] During the 21 years he spent in Leipzig, Koschaker was offered a position in Munich and then in Vienna, but he refused them both.^[104] The climate and people he found at Leipzig were highly receptive to his career and his studies, and it is worth analysing in depth the situation Koschaker found when he moved there.

Over time, the situation at the Law Faculty improved; Koschaker felt increasingly at ease and, in particular, well accepted by his colleagues, which he considered a great personal success.^[106] The association between Koschaker and Mitteis also evolved from that of a teacher-pupil relationship into a true friendship, both personal and academic, which was also true for his friendship with Siber. As has already been mentioned, Mitteis had been one of the most influential Roman law professors in the German-speaking countries since the end of the nineteenth century. He was not only one of the pioneers of the study of papyri, but also one of the first Roman law scholars to understand the necessity avoiding the risk of Roman law becoming increasingly neglected through its imposed “splendid isolation”. In 1891, Mitteis published a crucial work that indicated the new trend and direction that the research on Roman law should take: Reichsrecht und Volksrecht in den östlichen Provinzen des römischen Kaiserreichs.^[107]

As Koschaker wrote many years later, Mitteis’ book was groundbreaking and opened up new orientations for Roman law studies. Thanks to Mitteis’ work, scholars began to deal with a huge number of new sources, in particular those coming from the Eastern provinces of the Roman Empire, and they opened their mind to studies, which had previously only been the domain of philologists, historians and theologists.^[108]

At the same time, one must not forget that Mitteis had profoundly impressed Koschaker during his first period in Leipzig, as the former held a course in Pandektenexegese attended by around five hundred students.

Mitteis was able to influence the young Koschaker with respect to textual criticism (Interpolationeforschung), as explained in more depth below,^[111] even if his pupil has usually been considered a representative of the so-called Antikritik der Interpolationenforschung, namely a critic of interpolationism.^[112]

Mitteis’ ability to bring together the dogmatic and pandectist approaches with new research trends and studies on papyri, not to mention his personal prestige and charisma, quickly led to the birth of the Mitteis School at the beginning of the twentieth century in Leipzig.^[113] During the first two decades of the century, some of the most prominent Roman Law scholars and legal historians of the time spent several years at this school such as Hans Lewald,^[114] Demetrios Pappulias,^[115] Josef Aloys August Partsch,^[116] Fritz Pringsheim,^[117] Ernst Rabel,^[118] Andreas Bertalan Schwarz,^[119] Rafal Taubenschlag,^[120] Egon Weiß,^[121] Leopold Wenger,^[122] Friedrich von Woeß^[123] and, of course, Paul Koschaker, where they often worked together with one another.

Every Roman law scholar interested in the new trends of studies, focusing on the law of antiquity and the new - epigraphic, but, primarily, papyrological - sources, had to associate with this School and get in touch with its new groundbreaking methodology.

The second scientific trend, on the contrary, was much more focused on the comparative study of ancient legal history: in this case the comparative approach was not a means to gaining a better understanding of ancient laws in order to subsequently compare them then with modern legislation, but in fact to reach a better understanding of purely ancient laws, from a historical perspective. This very innovative way of studying Ancient and Roman law - thus defined merely as one of the laws of the past, even if a very prominent one - was suggested by Wenger. He expounded the new trend of the so-called antike Rechtsgeschichte at the University of Vienna in 1904, during the inaugural lesson of his course (the Antrittsvorlesung)⁷ Wenger’s idea and purpose consisted in saving Roman law from the “splendid isolation” into which it had fallen after the crisis of the Pandect­science (Pandektenwissenschaft) and the enactment of the German civil code (BGB). Since the use of Roman law as a foundation stone of modern legislation was no longer effective, it was necessary according to Wenger to study all the legal experiences of the past from a purely historical point of view. Roman law was thus seen as a historical- juridical phenomenon; it represented a very important legal experience but was one among other legal systems, such as Greek law or Babylonian law.

Wenger’s proposal was harshly criticised by many scholars, including Mitteis and Koschaker himself.