The Cologne legal historian Dieter Strauch, who will celebrate his eightieth birthday this autumn, has not only presented research on the ancient law of Scandinavia. His second area of work is the legal history of the Rhineland, the results of which from the years 1998 to 2008 are collected in this volume on the occasion of his milestone birthday. Three essays address medieval law: the Rhineland notary, Cologne's extensive trade with the Netherlands, and the small arbitration that Albertus Magnus used in 1252 to resolve the deep dispute between the Archbishop of Cologne and the city of Cologne. Four contributions illuminate the legal history of the Rhineland in the 19th century: the influence of French law on the Rhineland, the territorial compensation granted to small imperial estates by the Congress of Vienna (1815), and the internationalization of Rhine shipping.