This entry considers major developments in European literature, from the early Enlightenment to the end of the nineteenth century, with particular emphasis on the relation between literary production and Christian theological inquiry in a rapidly changing cultural and political environment.
The term ‘law’ does not admit of easy or universal definition. In its broadest sense, law consists of all the written and unwritten norms that govern human conduct – moral commandments, state statutes, church canons, family rules, commercial habits, communal customs, and others. It includes...