Encyclopedia of Law

(1) In the early stage of European jurisprudence, the reduction of the sum total of juridical knowledge to a single system, as exemplified by H. Hunnius’ Encyclopedia juris universi (1675).

(2) In the 19th century, a term used to designate introductory law as a theoretical discipline (so designated in Russia from 1863). As represented by certain authors, the encyclopedia of law actually coincided with the general theory of law—for example, in E. N. Trubetskoi’s “Lectures on the Encyclopedia of Law” (Moscow, 1913). More frequently it also included a presentation of the basic institutions and concepts of the major branches of law, in which case it was also called introduction to the science of law (see, for example, G. Radbruch’s Introduction to the Science of Law, translated from German, 1915). The encyclopedia of law was generally regarded as a training discipline and not as an independent science with its own subject and methodology. Most works on the encyclopedia of law were written from the standpoint of legal positivism.

The encyclopedia of law ceased to exist as a separate discipline in the 1920’s and 1930’s.