Ulrike Müßig (née Seif, born 1968 in
Würzburg
Würzburg (; Main-Franconian: ) is a city in the region of Franconia in the north of the German state of Bavaria. Würzburg is the administrative seat of the ''Regierungsbezirk'' Lower Franconia. It spans the banks of the Main River.
Würzburg is ...
) is a German
jurist
A jurist is a person with expert knowledge of law; someone who analyses and comments on law. This person is usually a specialist legal scholar, mostly (but not always) with a formal qualification in law and often a legal practitioner. In the Uni ...
and
legal historian
Legal history or the history of law is the study of how law has Sociocultural evolution, evolved and why it has changed. Legal history is closely connected to the development of civilisations and operates in the wider context of social history. C ...
as well as Head of the Chair for Civil Law, German and European Legal History at the
University of Passau
The University of Passau (''Universität Passau'' in German) is a public research university located in Passau, Lower Bavaria, Germany. Founded in 1973, it is the youngest university in Bavaria and consequently has the most modern campus in the s ...
.
Life
Ulrike Müßig studied law at the
University of Würzburg
The Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg (also referred to as the University of Würzburg, in German ''Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg'') is a public research university in Würzburg, Germany. The University of Würzburg is one of ...
(DE) and
Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...
(GB) as well as at the
University Paris II, Pantheon-Assas (FR) as a visiting student. She was promoted by the scholarship program for highly gifted students of the Bavarian Hundhammerstiftung, the
German National Academic Foundation
The German Academic Scholarship Foundation (German: , or ''Studienstiftung'' for short) is Germany's largest and most prestigious scholarship foundation. According to its statutes, it supports "the university education of young people who, on ac ...
(Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes) and the study abroad scholarship of the
DAAD. After the First State Examination in 1993, she received the doctoral scholarship of the Studienstiftung at the Institute for Comparative Law at the University of Würzburg and at the
Max-Planck-Institute
The Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science (german: Max-Planck-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaften e. V.; abbreviated MPG) is a formally independent non-governmental and non-profit association of Germany, German research ins ...
for foreign and international private law at
Hamburg
(male), (female) en, Hamburger(s),
Hamburgian(s)
, timezone1 = Central (CET)
, utc_offset1 = +1
, timezone1_DST = Central (CEST)
, utc_offset1_DST = +2
, postal ...
until she was awarded her doctorate in 1995 for submitting the thesis Der Bestandsschutz besitzloser Mobiliarsicherheiten im deutschen und englischen Recht (Unauthorized Dispositions of Assets serving as Security, Comparative Aspects of Non-possessory Security Rights over Movables in English and German Law). Having carried out her traineeship for her Assesorexamen in
Würzburg
Würzburg (; Main-Franconian: ) is a city in the region of Franconia in the north of the German state of Bavaria. Würzburg is the administrative seat of the ''Regierungsbezirk'' Lower Franconia. It spans the banks of the Main River.
Würzburg is ...
, Brussels and Paris, she became postdoctoral scholar at the Institute for Bavarian and German Legal History at the University of Würzburg under Professor Dietmar Willoweit from 1996 to 1999.
In 2000, she completed her postdoctoral qualification (
habilitation
Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in many European countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excellence in research, teaching and further education, usually including a ...
) at the Law Faculty of the University of Würzburg in the areas of European and German
Legal history
Legal history or the history of law is the study of how law has evolved and why it has changed. Legal history is closely connected to the development of civilisations and operates in the wider context of social history. Certain jurists and histo ...
,
Civil Law,
Comparative Law
Comparative law is the study of differences and similarities between the law (legal systems) of different countries. More specifically, it involves the study of the different legal "systems" (or "families") in existence in the world, including the ...
and International Private Law with a work on Legal History, receiving the Heisenberg Prize of the
DFG (German Research Foundation). Her habilitation Recht und Justizhoheit, Der gesetzliche Richter im historischen Vergleich von der Kanonistik bis zur Europäischen Menschenrechtskonvention, unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Rechtsentwicklung in Deutschland, England und Frankreich was published in the second edition. In the same year, Ulrike Müßig was appointed to the Chair for Civil Law and German and European Legal History at the University of Passau, rejecting an offered chair at the
University of Bielefeld
Bielefeld University (german: Universität Bielefeld) is a university in Bielefeld, Germany. Founded in 1969, it is one of the country's newer universities, and considers itself a "reform" university, following a different style of organization a ...
. An offer of the
University of Bern
The University of Bern (german: Universität Bern, french: Université de Berne, la, Universitas Bernensis) is a university in the Switzerland, Swiss capital of Bern and was founded in 1834. It is regulated and financed by the Canton of Bern. It ...
was rejected in 2003. From 2010 to 2012, Müßig was
Dean
Dean may refer to:
People
* Dean (given name)
* Dean (surname), a surname of Anglo-Saxon English origin
* Dean (South Korean singer), a stage name for singer Kwon Hyuk
* Dean Delannoit, a Belgian singer most known by the mononym Dean
Titles
* ...
of the Faculty of Law of the University of Passau.
The focus of her scientific work is to be found in the European Constitutional History from the 12th to the 21st century including the contemporary history of the
European integration
European integration is the process of industrial, economic integration, economic, political, legal, social integration, social, and cultural Regional integration, integration of states wholly or partially in Europe or nearby. European integrat ...
, the history of supreme jurisdiction, the Roman-canonical law of succession in medieval German legal recordings as well as the history of ideas of the 18th century. She contributed heavily to the manuals of German Legal History, the Encyclopaedia of Modern Age and the Oxford International Encyclopaedia of Legal History. She is co-author of the Grundlagen der Rechtswissenschaft (Foundations of Legal Science) together with
Horst Dreier
Horst Dreier (born 7 September 1954) is a German jurist and legal philosopher. He currently holds a chair at the University of Würzburg. In 2008 he was the initial candidate to replace Winfried Hassemer at the Federal Constitutional Court of Ger ...
and Michael Stolleis published by Mohr Siebeck.
What is characteristic for her work is the goal to maintain the historical disciplines as a part of legal education, to create conditions for interdisciplinary research as well as to enable an international exchange of ideas and the promotion of graduates.
Distinctions
Due to her scientific achievements, Ulrike Müßig was awarded the Bavarian Habilitation Prize 1996 (Bayerischen Habilitationsförderpreis 1996), the Prize of the Lower Franconian Gedenkjahresstiftung for Science 1997 (Preis der Unterfränkischen Gedenkjahresstiftung für Wissenschaft 1997) and the Heisenberg Prize of the DFG 2000. In 2008, she was nominated for the Gerda-Henkel-Prize.
Since 2014 she is a corresponding member of the National Academy al Andalus in the historic-judicial class (Ilustre Sociedad Andaluza de Estudios Histórico-Jurídicos). In 2013 Ulrike Müßig received the
ERC Advanced Grant ReConFort, Reconsidering Constitutional Formation in 18th and 19th century Europe (1.9 million €) for her research project on European Constitutional History,
which resulted in the creation of the ReConFort Research Blog in 2019. In April 2015 Prof. Dr. Ulrike Müßig was elected into the historical-philosophical class of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.
In 2019 she was elected as professeur invité at the faculty of law of the
Université Paris II Panthéon-Assas.
References
External links
University of Passau: Chair for Civil Law, German and European Legal History37. Deutscher RechtshistorikertagPortrait of Ulrike Müßig in German Television
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mussig, Ulrike
Jurists from Bavaria
Living people
Alumni of the University of Cambridge
University of Würzburg alumni
German legal scholars
1968 births
Writers from Würzburg
Legal historians
Studienstiftung alumni
Academic staff of the University of Passau