University of St. Thomas

J.D., Catholic University of America
J.C.L., Catholic University of America
Ph.D., History of Medieval Law, Cornell University
B.A., University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee

Professor Reid's Website

Charles J. Reid, Jr. was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where he majored in Latin, Classics, and History, and also did substantial coursework in classical Greek and modern European languages. It was during his undergraduate days that he developed an interest in canon law, doing a year of directed research in Roman and canon law under the supervision of James Brundage.
Reid then attended the Catholic University of America, where he earned J.D. and J.C.L. (license in canon law) degrees. During his time at Catholic University, he organized a series of symposia on the bishops' pastoral letter on nuclear arms. The proceedings of these symposia were published under Reid's editorship as "Peace in a Nuclear Age: The Bishops' Pastoral Letter in Perspective" (Catholic University of America Press, 1986). This book was called by the New York Times "among the most scholarly and unsettling of responses" to the pastoral letter (December 28, 1986).

Reid then attended Cornell University, where he earned a Ph.D. in the history of medieval law under the supervision of Brian Tierney. His thesis at Cornell was on the Christian, medieval origins of the western concept of individual rights. Over the last ten years, he has published a number of articles on the history of western rights thought, and is currently completing work on a book manuscript addressing this question.

In 1991, Reid was appointed research associate in law and history at the Emory University School of Law, where he has worked closely with Harold Berman on the history of western law. He collaborated with Professor Berman on articles on the Lutheran legal science of the
sixteenth century, the English legal science of the seventeenth century, and the flawed premises of Max Weber's legal historiography.

While at Emory, Reid has also pursued a research agenda involving scholarship on the history of western notions of individual rights; the history of liberty of conscience in America; and the natural-law foundations of the jurisprudence of Judge John Noonan. He has also
published articles on various aspects of the history of the English common law. He has had the chance to apply legal history in a forensic setting, serving as an expert witness in litigation involving the religious significance of Christian burial. Additionally, Reid has taught a seminar on the contribution of medieval canon law to the shaping of western constitutionalism.

Representative Scholarship

Catholics, The First Amendment, and U.S. Military Law: The Forgotten Case of Louis Negre, vol. 4, no. 2 Signs of Peace: The Journal of the Catholic Peace Fellowship 10 (Spring 2005).

The Three Great Antinomies of Modern Jurisprudence and Their Resolution in Christian Legal Thought, Regent Law Review (forthcoming 2005).

Toward an Understanding of Medieval Universal Rights: The Marital Rights of Non-Christians in Early Scholastic and Canonistic Writings, Ave Maria Law Review (forthcoming 2005)

When the Popes Ruled in England, Those Were Called the Dark Ages: Images of the Medieval Papacy and Medieval Canon Law as Instruments of Repression in Nineteenth-Century American Judicial Thought, Proceedings of the Twelfth International Congress of Medieval Canon Law (Vatican City, forthcoming 2008).

Power Over the Body, Equality in the Family: Rights and Domestic Relations in Medieval Canon Law (William Eerdmans 2004).

Medieval Canon Law and Rights, Kluwer Int’l, Fred Miller, ed., (forthcoming 2006).

The Religious Conscience and the State in American Constitutional Law, 1789-2000, in Religion Returns to the Public Square: Faith and Policy in America, Hugh Heclo and Wilfred M. McCay, eds., (Woodrow Wilson Center/John Hopkins Univ. Press 2003).

Legal Perspectives on the Catholic Crisis, 5 Government, Law, and Policy Journal 50-55, 64-66 (2003).

Classical Religious Perspectives on Adoption Law, 79 Notre Dame Law Review 693 (2004).

The Creativity of the Common-Law Judge: The Jurisprudence of William Mitchell, 30 William Mitchell Law Review 213 (2003).

Max Weber as Legal Historian, with Harold Berman, in The Cambridge Companion to Max Weber (2000).

Roots of a Democratic Church Polity in the History of Canon Law: The Case of Elections in the Church, 60 CLSA Proceedings 150 (1998).

The Seventeenth-Century Revolution in the English Land Law, 43 Cleveland State Law Review 221 (1995).

Tyburn, Thanatos, and Marxist Historiography: The Case of the London Hanged, 79 Cornell Law Review 1158 (1994).

The Canonistic Contribution to the Western Rights Tradition, 33 Boston College Law Review 37 (1991).

Courses Taught

Canon Law: History
Jurisprudence
Legal History
Property
Wills, Estates, and Trusts

Mailing Address

MSL 340
1000 LaSalle Avenue
Minneapolis, MN 55403-2015

"The Gingerbread Man Thirty Years On: The Parlous State of Marital Theory," 1 St. Thomas Law. J. 656-712 (2003).