Dr Fleur Stolker

Fleur is the Herchel Smith Teaching and Research Fellow in Law. From October 2024, she will also act as the Director of Studies in Law at the college and as an Affiliated Lecturer in Law at the Law Faculty.

Biography

I have always been interested in many things, particularly those related to history, classics, politics, international affairs, the arts, philosophy, economics, human behaviour, science, and social justice. Law is a subject that combines all of these interests, especially in an interdisciplinary field like legal history. Overall, I am fascinated in people and their stories within and beyond a legal context.  

One of my interests is the study of English legal history in its socio–legal context. Simply put, this means that I am interested how the law interacts with society and how society interacts with the law. In particular, in English law, it can be quite peculiar at times. My fascination with England, its history, and its culture was sparked at a young age. However, born in Amsterdam, I spent most of my childhood in the Netherlands before pursuing my first degree in law at Leiden University. I went on to study for a LLM in Jurisprudence and Philosophy of Law at Leiden University, followed by another LLM in Health Law at the University of Amsterdam. It was the master’s thesis of my first LLM that finally brought me to England. My thesis was concerned with the constitutional history of the office of the lord chancellor. However, at the end of her thesis, I realised that the lord chancellor also had an important private law function.

To find out more, I went on to study at Magdalen College, University of Oxford, focusing on English legal history of private law. I was particularly excited by the law of equity, which had the power to rectify instances where common law outcomes resulted in unfair and unconscionable results. The equitable function of the lord chancellor has captivated me ever since. In fact, my interest led me to remain at the University of Oxford for an MSt at St Catherine’s College and DPhil at Brasenose College, followed by a stint as a post–doctoral researcher at the Law Faculty and a Junior Research Fellowship at New College. I have also held various teaching positions over the years, most notably as a lecturer at New College, Oxford. Outside my academic career, I have worked in an auction house, a legal library, and a commercial law firm.

Aside from my scholarly pursuits, I enjoy English, Roman and intellectual history; literature; acting; tennis; watching costume dramas, legal dramas, and police dramas, and comedies; playing the piano; appreciating early modern music, art and architecture; and, most importantly, engaging in social activities with friends and family.

Teaching

I love teaching. At Emmanuel, I teach the 'Civil Law’ (Year 1) and 'Equity' (Year 3) papers on the undergraduate course. Starting from October 2024, I will also teach ‘Land Law’ (Year 2) in college. Furthermore, I will lecture ‘Equity’ to undergraduates and ‘Legal History’ to postgraduates on the LLM program at the Law Faculty. All these subjects have close links with my research. I have wide–ranging teaching experience in many different areas of law (one of my hobbies is to find the links between them). At Oxford, I have taught 'Modern Legal History' on the postgraduate course (BCL/MJur), and ‘A Roman Introduction to Private Law’, ‘Contract Law, ‘Trusts’, ‘Land Law’, ‘Constitutional Law’, and ‘Legal History of English Private Law’ to undergraduates. At Leiden University, she I taught courses in ‘Jurisprudence’ and ‘Moot Court’.

Research

My research interests lie in legal history, with a particular focus on the early modern period. I examine how the law, courts, and society in early modern England protected the vulnerable, as well as how Roman legal ideas were used to shape the legal order of early modern England. I use both doctrinal and socio–legal research methods. The first method analyses legal cases, statutes and so on, whereas the second method explores how the law interacts with society.

My current research investigates the foundations of bankruptcy and financial rehabilitation in the English, Dutch, and colonial legal systems of the sixteenth, seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. This includes, for example, cross–border insolvency before globalisation, and how the Court of Chancery dealt with orphans when their parents had died bankrupt. I think that in the face of the current cost–of–living crisis, understanding bankruptcy systems can be hugely valuable. 

Furthermore, I am also interested in how history can inform our current understanding of both equity and personal bankruptcy systems, especially in relation to social welfare and charity, as well as the history of political and constitutional thought, and morality. I have written on various topics in relation to the history of bankruptcy and insolvency law. See for example, Fleur Stolker, ‘The Forgotten History of Bankruptcy, 1543–1624’ (2023), The Journal of Legal History 295-324.