We are looking for you! Are you fascinated by the legal and social history of the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period, and eager 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 explore how earlier generations regulated post‑mortem transfer of patrimony through last wills, understand the interplay between societal dynamics, “learned law” and testamentary freedom, and possibly leave your home country to research as a Doctoral Candidate in legal history at a foreign university? Is the prospect of a six‑month research stay in another country, coupled with a three‑month archive internship, appealing to you?
This Doctoral Candidate will be based at KU Leuven, within the Research Unit Roman Law and Legal History, a department of the Faculty of Law and Criminology. The Unit is an interdisciplinary, internationally oriented research group consisting of four professors and about ten junior researchers, with research axes spanning the history of international law, colonial legal history and ius commune in the early modern period (15th‑18th centuries).
The doctoral candidate 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). During the fellowship the candidate will spend six months in Warsaw and three months at the City Archives in Leuven.
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 brings together five hiring universities: KU Leuven (Belgium, coordinating institution), Jagiellonian University Kraków (Poland), University of Warsaw (Poland), Charles University Prague (Czech Republic), and Friedrich‑Schiller‑University Jena (Germany). Associated partners include museums and archives that will host Doctoral Candidates for internships, allowing them to gain practical experience.
TESTAMENT is an interdisciplinary consortium of social and legal historians that will study dynamics of freedom and “unfreedom”, power and oppression, through the lens of testamentary law and practice in Western and Central Europe (c. 1420‑1620), focusing on the regions in the periphery of the late medieval and early modern academic tradition. The project aims to develop a common language that transcends the traditional dichotomy of freedom/unfreedom, identify criteria to situate specific cases on this continuum, and elucidate family, policy, jurisdictional and jurisprudential dynamics that determined people’s ability to dispose of goods post‑mortally.
The consortium will train promising junior scholars into professional, critically‑minded, communicative, cooperative and digitally competent social and legal historians. Ph.D. students will be integrated into a unique international network of scholars from law and social history, and will receive training in disciplinary and transferable skills at summer and winter schools, monthly online seminars, secondments abroad, and collaborative projects with non‑academic actors such as archives and museums. New scientific perspectives will be opened using digital methods (especially HTR tools) and by adding unedited material to open‑access databases. Outreach will reach diverse audiences through social media, blog posts, online exhibitions, course materials for secondary teachers, interdisciplinary university seminars, and alumni events.
Profiel
Responsibilities
* Research the regulatory framework and societal context concerning joint last wills of spouses in Leuven (15th‑16th centuries) and prepare a doctoral dissertation on this topic.
* Actively participate in TESTAMENT‑network activities (summer and winter schools, monthly online meetings, concluding conference).
* Present research at one international conference.
* Write at least one peer‑reviewed scientific article.
* Actively participate in the Research Unit and the Doctoral School of KU Leuven.
* Conduct a six‑month research stay at the University of Warsaw (can be divided into several shorter terms).
* Conduct a three‑month internship at the City Archives of Leuven, including participation in a citizen science transcription project of documents from the Leuven court of aldermen.
Profile
* You are creative, ambitious, hard‑working, and persistent.
* You hold or will hold a master’s degree in law or history by August 2026.
* You possess good communicative skills and can contribute to a research team.
* You have a good command of English (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 Dutch is an advantage.
* You have a good passive command of Latin.
Eligibility criteria
* Supported researchers must be doctoral candidates, i.e. not already holding a doctoral degree at recruitment.
* Researchers can be of any nationality and must comply with the mobility rule: they must not have resided or carried out their main activity in Belgium for more than 12 months in the 36 months immediately before recruitment.
Aanbod
* Full‑time position for three years, with an intermediate evaluation (go/no‑go) after one year.
* The gross doctoral scholarship (tax‑free) is approximately 3 055,61 EUR per month for single candidates with no dependent family members; it varies with partners or dependents.
* Additional benefits in accordance with KU Leuven regulations.
* High‑quality training programs and support to become a self‑aware, autonomous scientific researcher.
Interesse?
Do you recognize yourself in this profile and would like to know more? Please contact Prof. Dr. Wouter Druwé (wouter.druwe@kuleuven.be) or Prof. Dr. Chanelle Delameillieure (chanelle.delameillieure@kuleuven.be).
We invite you to submit a complete application using the online application tool. Only applications submitted through the online tool are considered.
The application must include a motivation letter (including your master thesis topic), a curriculum vitae (with contact details of at least two references), and a list of bachelor and master courses and grades (and ranking, if available).
Promising candidates will be contacted by email. The 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 will be organised a few weeks later at KU Leuven. 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 (Prague, Warsaw, Jena, Kraków), each with its own eligibility criteria. For more information on those other positions, please consult the project's website https://testament.project.uj.edu.pl. Feel free to apply for all TESTAMENT vacancies you are eligible for.
Solliciteren voor deze vacature kan tot en met 20/04/2026 via onze online sollicitatietoepassing.
KU Leuven is committed to an inclusive, respectful, and socially safe community. We embrace diversity and aim to remove historical inequalities. We do not accept any form of discrimination based on gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, ethnicity, nationality, skin colour, religious or philosophical beliefs, neurodivergence, disability, health, or socio‑economic status. For questions about accessibility or support, contact us at solliciteren@kuleuven.be.
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