The Kursächsischen Constitutionen, issued in 1572 by electoral prince August of Saxony (1526-1586), were one of the most important legislative acts of early modern Europe. They aimed to provide the Electorate of Saxony with a consistent and permanent body of laws. For their preparation, August of Saxony asked the jurists of the law faculties of Wittenberg and Leipzig to meet and discuss the most complex legal issues of the time. Consultations were held during the years 1569-1572 in Wittenberg, Leipzig, and Meissen. The result of these discussions was later collected and published in the three volumes of the so-called Consultationes constitutionum saxonicarum (1599-1601). The Consultationes include the opinions of some of the most famous jurists, like Johannes Schneidewein (1519-1568), Matthaeus Wesenbeck (1531-1586) and Jakob Thoming (1524-1576). These opinions are organized in the form of quaestiones: a case is described, arguments pro and contra are examined, different authorities are weighted and a decision is formulated.
The Consultationes were neither a body of laws nor a collection of judicial decisions but represented a private collection of legal opinions, an experimental exercise to find the right solution to current legal problems. A group of jurists translated existing normative knowledge into normative statements valid for specific cases. This paper will focus on the Consultationes as an example of normative knowledge production searching to answer some questions. From which type of normative knowledge did these jurists draw? Which method and which operational rules were adopted? What type of normative knowledge was generated? What influence did it produce on the community of practitioners? What functions were performed in relation to the formation of normative orders?