Doctoral Candidate in Legal History - KU Leuven - MSCA DN "TESTAMENT"
KU Leuven is an autonomous university founded in 1425, part of the Catholic tradition.
Are you fascinated by the legal and social history of the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period? Do you want to be an active player in a truly international and interdisciplinary environment, within a prestigious MSCA Doctoral Network, funded by the European Commission? Do you want to know more about how earlier generations regulated the post‑mortal transfer of patrimony, through last wills and related legal mechanisms? Are you interested in the interplay between societal dynamics, “learned law” and testamentary freedom? Are you willing to leave your home country and to start researching as a Doctoral Candidate in legal history at a foreign university? Are you looking forward to getting the chance of a six‑month research stay in yet another country, at yet another high‑level university, and a three‑month internship in an archive? Then, you might be the candidate we are looking for!
This DC will be based at KU Leuven, at the Research Unit Roman Law and Legal History. The KU Leuven Research Unit Roman Law and Legal History, which is a department of the Faculty of Law and Criminology, is an interdisciplinary and internationally oriented research group, which currently consists of four professors and about ten junior researchers. Next to a research axis on the history of international law and colonial legal history, the department has a strong focus on and track record in the study of ius commune, especially in the early modern period (15th‑18th centuries).
The DC will be supervised by prof. dr. Wouter Druwé (legal history, KU Leuven) and co‑supervised by prof. dr. Agnieszka Bartoszewicz (social history, University of Warsaw). In the course of this fellowship, the DC will stay six months in Warsaw, and three months at the City Archives in Leuven.
This Doctoral Candidate (DC) will focus on the law of last wills within the university town of Leuven, with a special emphasis on joint last wills of spouses. For this research, a variety of sources will be used, including learned legal treatises, consultations by law professors, archives of public notaries and of the Leuven court of aldermen. The DC will study ways in which attempts were made to adapt the existing particular law on joint last wills of spouses to or on the basis of principles of Roman and canon law, and how these attempts were (or were not) the reflection of power relations.
Project
The MSCA Doctoral Network “TESTAMENT” (Testamentary Practices in the Periphery of the Ius Commune Tradition: Freedom and Oppression (c. 1420‑1620)) is funded by the European Union under Grant Agreement No. 101226689. It groups 5 hiring universities: KU Leuven (Belgium, co‑ordinating institution), Jagiellonian University Cracow (Poland), University of Warsaw (Poland), Charles University Prague (Czech Republic), and Friedrich‑Schiller‑University Jena (Germany). The network also comprises several Associated Partners, museums and archives, which will host Doctoral Candidates for internships, allowing them to gain practical experience as well.
TESTAMENT, an interdisciplinary consortium of social and legal historians from the universities of Leuven, Kraków, Jena, Prague and Warsaw, will study dynamics of freedom and ‘unfreedom’, of power and oppression, through the lens of testamentary law and practice in Western and Central Europe (c. 1420‑1620), with a particular focus on the regions in the ‘periphery’ of the late medieval and early modern academic tradition. The project members will develop a language to transcend the traditional dichotomy between ‘freedom’ and ‘unfreedom’ and will single out criteria that can be used to situate specific cases on this continuum. On the basis of thorough archival and doctrinal‑historical research, the project will single out the family, policy, jurisdictional and jurisprudential dynamics that determined the extent to which people could dispose of their goods post‑mortally.
To this end, the consortium will train promising junior scholars into professional, critically‑minded, communicative, cooperative and digitally competent social and legal historians. The Ph.D. students will be integrated in a unique international network of scholars from both law and social history. They will be trained in both disciplinary and transferable skills at summer and winter schools, at monthly online seminars, through a secondment at another academic partner abroad and also through meaningful experiences in collaboration with non‑academic actors (especially archives and musea).
This project will open new scientific perspectives for research by using digital methods (especially HTR‑tools) and will add new unedited material to existing open access databases for further research. Through social media, blogposts, (online) exhibitions, course materials for secondary school teachers, interdisciplinary university seminars and presentations at alumni events, the consortium explicitly aims to introduce new approaches to the past through lesser‑known historical documents to a wide range of audiences.
Profile
Responsibilities
In the framework of the MSCA Doctoral Network "TESTAMENT", the Doctoral Candidate will have the following responsibilities:
* researching the regulatory framework and societal context concerning joint last wills of spouses in Leuven (15th‑16th centuries), and preparing a doctoral dissertation on this topic;
* actively participating in the activities of the TESTAMENT‑network (summer and winter schools, monthly online meetings, concluding conference);
* presenting the research at at least one international conference;
* writing at least one peer‑reviewed scientific article;
* actively participating in the activities of the Research Unit and of the Doctoral School of KU Leuven;
* conducting a six‑month research stay at the University of Warsaw (which can be divided in several shorter terms);
* conducting a three‑month internship at the City Archives of Leuven, where the DC will be involved inter alia in a citizen science project on the transcription of relevant documentation from the Leuven court of aldermen.
Profile
* You are creative and ambitious, hard‑working, and persistent.
* You have a master's degree in law or history or you will have it by August 2026.
* You have good communicative skills, and the attitude to partake successfully in the work of a research team.
* You have a good command of the English language (spoken and written).
* You have a good passive command of Dutch (or its early modern variant) and/or French (or its early modern variant). Active command of Dutch is an advantage.
* You have a good passive command of Latin.
* Supported researchers must be doctoral candidates, i.e. not already in possession of a doctoral degree at the date of the recruitment.
* Recruited researchers can be of any nationality and must comply with the following mobility rule: they must not have resided or carried out their main activity (work, studies, etc.) in the country of the recruiting beneficiary (Belgium) for more than 12 months in the 36 months immediately before their recruitment date. Compulsory national service, short stays such as holidays and time spent by the researcher as part of a procedure for obtaining refugee status under the Geneva Convention are not considered.
Offer
A meaningful research opportunity in a dynamic and ambitious university, in an interdisciplinary setting and within an international network. In addition, we offer you:
* Full‑time position for three years, with an intermediate evaluation (go/no‑go) after 1 year.
* The gross amount of the doctoral scholarship (tax‑free) will be approximately 3.055,61 EUR per month if you are single with no dependent family members. It will be higher if you have a registered partner without income and/or dependent child(ren); it will be lower if you have a registered partner with income.
* Additional benefits are in accordance to KU Leuven regulations.
* High‑quality training programs and other support to grow into a self‑aware, autonomous scientific researcher.
Interested?
Do you recognize yourself in this profile and would you like to know more? Please contact prof. dr. Wouter Druwé, mail: wouter.druwe@kuleuven.be or prof. dr. Chanelle Delameillieure, mail: chanelle.delameillieure@kuleuven.be.
We invite you to submit a complete application by using the online application tool. Only applications that are submitted in this way are taken into account.
The application should include a motivation letter (including the topic of your master thesis project), a curriculum vitae (including contact details of at least two references) and a list of your bachelor and master courses and grades (and ranking, if available).
Promising candidates will be contacted by email. Deadline for applications is Monday 20 April 2026. After a first selection, candidates will be invited for a first round of interviews (online) on Wednesday 6 May 2026. A second round at the location of employment (KU Leuven) will be organized a few weeks later. The successful Doctoral Candidate will be employed from 1 September 2026.
There are also vacancies for Doctoral Candidates at other faculties and institutions within the TESTAMENT‑Consortium (in Prague, Warsaw, Jena and Kraków), each with its own eligibility criteria. For more information on those other DC‑positions, please consult our project's website https://testament.project.uj.edu.pl. Do not hesitate to apply for all TESTAMENT's vacancies you are eligible for!
KU Leuven strives for an inclusive, respectful and socially safe environment. We embrace diversity among individuals and groups as an asset. Open dialogue and differences in perspective are essential for an ambitious research and educational environment. In our commitment to equal opportunity, we recognize the consequences of historical inequalities. We do not accept any form of discrimination based on, but not limited to, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, age, ethnic or national background, skin colour, religious and philosophical diversity, neurodivergence, employment disability, health, or socioeconomic status. For questions about accessibility or support offered, we are happy to assist you at this email address.
Job details
Title
Doctoral Candidate in Legal History - KU Leuven - MSCA DN "TESTAMENT"
Closing on: 2026-04-20 (Europe/Brussels)
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