Bethany McNamara-Dale
Please note that my doctorate is now complete. Please be aware that I may not receive emails sent to my Oxford account from Summer 2026.
Thesis Topic
Jurisdictional Conflict and Supranational Order: German Legal Reform and State-Building 1770-1866
Supervisor: Professor Peter H. Wilson
Thesis Abstract:
This thesis considers German legal reform and state-building between 1770 and 1866 through the lens of jurisdictional conflict and supranational governance. This approach brings the long transitions of governance to the fore, subverting many of the assumptions of traditional historiographies of German development and reasserting the multi-dimensional nature of German states and society. Two case study states, Bavaria and Hessen-Kassel (or Kurhessen as it became), are used to trace the experiences of legal reform across a century of extraordinary upheaval. Their contrasting trajectories shift focus from the dominant Austrian and Prussian narratives, whilst also illuminating the diversity of experience and deeply held pluralism at the heart of German social, political and legal order. By challenging the conventional chronological and geographical foci of existing historical narratives, this thesis highlights key motifs of German society and governance: the lasting legacies of the Holy Roman Empire’s socio-legal structures; the enduring focus on arbitrative development as the legitimate alternative to violence; and a deep-rooted legal culture of consensus through mediation.
Arbitration is emphasised as both a necessity of the enmeshed jurisdictional realities of German society and as a core source of stability across the long transitions of German history. Although these multi-layered arrangements appear disordered and archaic when judged against modern, centralised nation-states, the notion of historical legal privilege retained its validity even through the most dramatic ruptures of the era, providing continuity and legitimacy in governance. By focusing upon the courses and dynamics of inevitable jurisdictional tensions, this thesis provides a new lens through which to understand state-building and legal change. In doing so, it contributes to a richer account of multi-dimensional German governance and society, while also providing a critical historical perspective on the challenges of supranational order – demonstrating that state-building and legal reform were, and remain, inherently contingent and intertwined.
Selected Conference Papers
- German History Society Conference 2025 (Loughborough University)
Democracy and Constitutionalism in the German Confederation: Kurhessen’s Crises and the Hassenpflug Era(s) (1831-62)
- GRACEH 2025 - Law and Diversity in Europe (University of Vienna)
Vagabonds and Thieves: German Forests and Borderlands as Spaces of Lawlessness
- Community and Identity c.1400-1800 (Aberystwyth University)
Localised jurisdiction in eighteenth-century German communities: historic privilege and regional authority
- States, local jurisdictions and borderlands in Europe and the Americas, c.1713-1914 (Lady Margaret Hall) in collaboration with Past & Present
Spatial sovereignty and regulating movement: re-forging jurisdictions and locating the state in the German Confederation 1815-66.
- German History Society Conference 2019 (King’s College London)
Jurisdictional conflict and supranational order: German legal reform and state-building: 1770-1866
- Oxford Brookes Professional Research Network Showcase
Judicial peculiarities in multi-layered administration: university jurisdiction and its applications in 18th and 19th century Germany
Academic Background
- 1st Class BA (Hons) in German and History at the University of Kent (2011-15), including a year studying at Ruprecht-Karls Universität Heidelberg.
- MSt British and European History (1500-Present) at the University of Oxford (2016-17). My MSt thesis focused on the development of the German Confederation as a diplomatic, military and political structure between 1815 and 1847, using Bavaria and Württemberg as case study states.
