The General State Laws for the Prussian States (german: Allgemeines Landrecht für die Preußischen Staaten, ALR) were an important

code In communications and information processing, code is a system of rules to convert information—such as a letter, word, sound, image, or gesture—into another form, sometimes shortened or secret, for communication through a communication ...

of Prussia, promulgated in 1792 and codified by Carl Gottlieb Svarez and

Ernst Ferdinand Klein Ernst Ferdinand Klein (3 September 1744 in Breslau – 18 March 1810 in Berlin) was a German jurist and prominent representative of the Berlin Enlightenment. Career Klein studied law at Halle under Daniel Nettelbladt, a follower of Christian W ...

, under the orders of Frederick II. The code had over 17,000 articles, and covered fields of

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, penal law, family law,

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, administrative law etc.

History

Development

Cocceji, Samuel von – Project des Corporis Juris Fridericiani, 1752 – BEIC 14430789

Frederick I of Prussia wanted to create a uniform set of laws, but it was not started until the reign of Frederick II. Frederick's idea was not only to create a unified set of laws, but to make them clear and eliminate possible manipulations by different interpretation. A previous attempt, ''Project eines Corporis Juris Fridericiani'' (1749–51), by

Samuel von Cocceji Samuel Freiherr von Cocceji (pronounced ''kok-'tse-yi'') (20 October 1679 – 4 October 1755) was a German official from the Electorate of the Palatinate who served Brandenburg-Prussia. He was the son of Heinrich von Cocceji. Cocceji was born ...

, proved unsuccessful. The first version was called the ''General Code for the Prussian states'' (german: Allgemeines Gesetzbuch für die Preußischen Staaten, AGB, 1792). Svarez and Klein, who were under the orders of Frederick the Great, presented a project in 1785, but the general state laws for the Prussian states were finally codified in 1794. Frederick had recently overruled his judiciary who had ruled against the millers Arnold in the Miller Arnold case, imprisoning judges who had disobeyed his orders. As a figure keen to maintain his prestige as an Enlightened Absolutist, codification of the laws was a desirable response to his un-Enlightened break of the 'rule of law'.

Usage

The interpretations of the code's usage are contradictory; some interpret the laws as well known for being simple to read and interpret, without much abstract, being rather an every-day regulating laws, but others point out that while the code was written in German, it used an incredibly casuistic and imprecise language, making it hard to properly understand and use in practice. After the second partition of Poland, it was promulgated on the annexed territories as subsidiary law, intended to accelerate the process of their integration with Prussia. The Landrecht was a typical example of a law of the transition period between feudalism and capitalism, where old institutions of feudal law (ordinations, separate property, class divisions, nobility

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, subjection of peasants) existed alongside modern ones (definition of property). The Landrecht stopped functioning after the system was reformed ( Stein–Hardenberg reforms) and the feudal remnants were removed.

References

External links

* German full text: Allgemeines Landrecht für die Preußischen Staaten (01.06.1794)
Einleitung (Introduction)Erster Theil (I. Part)Zweyter Theil (II. Part)
on
OpinioIuris: Die freie juristische Bibliothek
retrieved on 3 March 2013.

retrieved on 3 March 2013. {{Authority control Civil codes Prussian law 18th century in Prussia 1790s establishments in Prussia