Last week, the UK government announced that the King has approved Professor Wim Decock, Professor of Roman Law, as Regius Professor of Civil Law at the University of Oxford.
A Regius professorship is considered the most prestigious professorship in the nation. Positions have been historically restricted to a “handful of the ‘ancient’ universities in the United Kingdom and Ireland” and appointed only by a “Royal patron”. Founded in 1504 by King Henry VIII, the professorship can be endowed to scholars of Divinity, Medicine, Greek, Hebrew, Civil Law, Modern History, and English Literature.
A Professor of Roman Law, Legal History and Comparative Law, Decock is currently teaching at Université Catholique de Louvain and the University of Liège, both in Belgium. He will assume his position on 1st October and become a Fellow of All Souls College.
Decock told Cherwell: “I was deeply honoured – and, I admit, rather humbled – by my appointment as Regius Professor of Civil Law. The chair carries an extraordinary historical and intellectual legacy stretching back to the time of King Henry VIII. To be entrusted with a role that has been held by scholars who helped shape the study of civil law in Britain and beyond is both an immense privilege and a great responsibility.”
He also told Cherwell that he aimed to “strengthen Oxford’s position as a leading centre for the study of civil law in its historical, doctrinal, and comparative dimensions” and said that he was confident in realising this ambition.
He added that he was deeply committed to the chair’s educational function precisely because “civil law is an essential part of the law curriculum”.
The Regius Professorship is especially important for communicating the “grammar and vocabulary of law to undergraduates, while simultaneously opening their minds to the international dimension of law and to its historical, philosophical, and cultural moorings”.
Having been raised in a small village in the Flemish countryside and gifted the Oxford English Dictionary as one of his first books, Decock told Cherwell that the honour was a “childhood dream come true”.
“I have spent many years living and working abroad in beautiful and stimulating places… but I am confident that Oxford will surpass them all.” Decock sees the opportunity to form part of Oxford’s community of scholars and teach “some of the best students in the world” as an exciting prospect.
