Eberhard Freiherr von Kuenssberg, ed. Der Sachsenspiegel (nd, but ca 1935)

     Eberhard Freiherr von Kuenssberg, ed. Der Sachsenspiegel (nd, but ca 1935). Another book from the Insel Verlag series, this one reproducing selected illustrations of a medieval law book, originally compiled and written by what we would call a sheriff. A medieval sheriff was more than a cop, though, his duties were primarily those of a magistrate. The introduction by Kuenssberg is historically accurate as far as I can tell. There’s no doubt that the Sachsenspiegel (Mirror of the Saxons) was a major document in the development of law and jurisprudence as we understand it, since it codified existing practice and so provided precedents. The effect of Nazi ideology is much weaker in this work than the book about the Minnesinger, but it does show up in references to German “Volkstum” and other such vague, romanticised notions of blood and soil. ** (2005)