The Evolving Concept of Private Law in Europe

This introduction aims to set out some of the basic concepts of European private law, while providing a common ground for the rest of the handbook Uncovering European Private Law. The introduction starts by defining some key terms, such as private law, private autonomy, or freedom of contract, and then proceeds to unpack important processes and developments that have marked the constitution of private law in Europe, including materialization and constitutionalization of private law, as well as the Europeanization and instrumentalization of private law through positive and negative integration. Building on the understanding of these terms and processes, we propose to understand European private law not only as a multi-level legal field but also a way of looking at private law that is necessarily transdisciplinary, comparative and contextual.