The Politics of Natural Law: Agrarian Reform, Intra-Aristocratic Conflict, and Natural Jurisprudence in Denmark, c. 1750-1800

Popular science description

The agrarian reforms of the 18th century were some of the most momentous historical events in Danish history. In the span of 30 years, half of all peasants went from living in a state of serfdom to owning and cultivating their own plots of land, free from the onerous ties of manorial dependence that they had toiled under for hundreds of years. In this pioneering dissertation, Markus Christian Hansen examines the development and use of natural law ideas amongst the pro-reformist militants. He shows how notions of right, obligation, and contract were systematically linked together with historical analyses of Danish society, resulting in a powerful argument in favour of state interventionin the manorial system. By using a Political Marxist theoretical and methodological framework, Christian Hansen reveals that the Danish aristocracy was not a single, unified group, but rather comprised two qualitatively distinctive entities with antagonistic interests. When the Danish economy entered a crisis in the 18th century, a fatal state-coup resulted in the destruction of one fraction by the other. This was the context within which natural jurisprudence was deployed.